Villainous Company

September 13, 2007

Don't Close Your Blinds

Shortly after this war began, I received an email from a good friend. My daughter had just turned four, and her Papa was, quite literally, at the point of the tip of the spear for OIF. The body of that email contained what is, to this day, the best analogy I've seen that depicts not only what kind of enemy we're fighting, but also why we're fighting them over there right now. Obviously, I received this before Saddam was found under his rock. However, his brand of extremism was no different than al Qaeda's, so in the interest of relevance, I've changed the name from Saddam to al Qaeda. I've been saving this for 3 years now, so that when my daughter asks me why Papa had to go away again, I can tell her.

Don't Close Your Blinds

The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we were at war. My husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My husband and I were in the Army during the Gulf War, and we would be honored to serve and defend our Country again today. I knew that my husband would give him a good explanation. My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my son to go stand in our front living room window.

He told him, "Son, stand there and tell me what you see?"

Our son replied, "I see trees and cars and our neighbor's houses."

"OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United States of America, and you are President Bush."

Our son giggled and said, "OK."

"Now, Son, I want you to look out the window and pretend that every house and yard on this block is a different country."

"OK Dad, I'm pretending."

"Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and see a man come out of his house with his wife. He has her by the hair. and he is hitting her. You see her bleeding and crying. He hits her in the face and throws her on the ground. Then he starts to kick her to death. Their children run out and are afraid to stop him. They are crying. They are watching this but do nothing because they are kids and afraid of their father. You see all of this, Son. What do you do?"

"Dad?"

"What do you do, Son?"

"I call the police, Dad."

"OK. Pretend that the police are the United Nations. They take your call, listen to what you know and saw, but they refuse to help. What do you do then, Son?"

"Dad...but the police are supposed to help!" My son starts to whine.

"They don't want to because they say it's not their place, or your place, to get involved, and you should stay out of it." My husband explains.

"But Dad...he killed her!" My son exclaims.

"I know he did, but the police told you to stay out of it. Now, I want you to look out that window and pretend you see our neighbor, who you're pretending is al Qaeda, turn around and do the same thing to his children."

"Daddy...he kills them?"

"Yes, Son, he does. What do you do?"

"Well, if the police don't want to help, I will go and ask my next door neighbor to help me stop him." Our son says.

"Son, our next door neighbor sees what is happening and refuses to get involved as well. He refuses to open the door and help you stop him."

"But Dad, I NEED help! I can't stop him by myself!"

"WHAT DO YOU DO, SON?" Our son starts to cry. "OK, no one wants to help you. The man across the street saw you ask for help and saw that no one would help you stop him. He stands taller and puffs out his chest. Guess what he does next, Son?"

"What, Daddy?"

"He walks across the street to the old lady’s house, breaks down her door and drags her out. He steals all her stuff and sets her house on fire, and then...he kills her. He turns around and sees you standing in the window and laughs at you. WHAT DO YOU DO?"

"Daddy..."

"WHAT. DO. YOU. DO?"

Our son is crying and he looks down and he whispers, "I close the blinds, Daddy."

My husband looks at our son with tears in his eyes and asks him... "Why?"

"Because Daddy.....the police are supposed to help people who needs it....and they won't help. You always say that neighbors are supposed to HELP neighbors, but they won't help either...they won't help me stop him...I'm afraid....I can't do it by myself, Daddy.....I can't look out my window and just watch him do all these terrible things and...and.....do nothing...so....I'm just going to close the blinds....so I can't see what he's doing........and I'm going to pretend that it is not happening."

I start to cry. My husband looks at our nine year old son standing in the window, looking pitiful and ashamed at his answers to my husbands questions and he tells him...."Son..."

"Yes, Daddy."

"Open the blinds because that man.... he's at your front door...WHAT DO YOU DO?"

My son looks at his father, anger and defiance in his eyes. He balls up his tiny fists, looks his father square in the eyes and without hesitation he says, "I DEFEND MY FAMILY, DAD! I'M NOT GONNA LET HIM HURT MOMMY OR MY SISTER, DAD!! I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM, DAD. I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM!!!"

I see a tear roll down my husband's cheek. He grabs our son to his chest, hugs him tight, and cries. Then he whispers, "It's too late to fight him. He's too strong, and he's already at YOUR front door, Son.....you should have stopped him BEFORE he killed his wife. You HAVE to do what's right, even if you have to do it alone. Before it's too late."

This is why we are at war in Iraq. Good people standing by, letting evil happen is the greatest evil of all. Our President is doing what is right. We, as a free nation, must understand that this war is a war for all humanity. We must defeat that evil, so that we can continue to live in a free world where we are not afraid to look out our window. You must never be afraid to do what is right, even if you have to do it alone. So that, in the future, our children will never have to close their blinds.

I couldn't have said it better.

Posted by Sly at 10:26 PM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

August 31, 2007

War. And Peace.

I've been told I have an unhealthy obsession with war. If that is true, and I suppose it is possible, it would not be because I love conflict.

Not that. Never that.

It would be because I hate and fear it so.

Somewhere in her basement my mother has a black and white photograph of me. I must have been about three years old at the time. I'm standing with a gaggle of neighborhood children, hands on hips, one of my Mom's cast off purses clutched fiercely under my arm. Blonde curls and rosy cheeks notwithstanding, I am in charge of everything; a miniature She Who Must Be Obeyed ready to take on imaginary monsters, wayward puppies and anything else that requires a gentle but firm talking to. But all my bottled up sassiness was just an act.

Because I remember, too, how much I hated it when the evening news came on. Forty five years later I still recall running from the room to hide on the stairs with my hands over my ears, because I never could bear to hear that anyone had been hurt. To this day I cannot stand to watch the news. I read newspapers, instead.

All the same, this morning I didn't intend to write about war. I started out to write about children:

If you’ve somehow managed to miss the story—which would be quite an accomplishment at this point—CBS had 40 kids out in a New Mexico ghost town this summer to film a reality show in which the children, ages 8-15, were to build their own society, compete for prizes, bicker, befriend, and of course, be filmed.

CBS is now under fire because, due to some serious mistakes on the network’s part (and allegations that it tried to conceal those mistakes by deflecting inspectors), the production may have fallen afoul of New Mexico’s child labor laws. There were also four injuries on set. One little girl, whose mother has filed a complaint against CBS, was splashed with grease while cooking. Three other kids were treated after ingesting small amounts of bleach from an unmarked bottle. None of the injuries were serious, and they were all treated promptly.

Reading Mary Katherine's words, my thoughts drifted back to my sons' growing up years. They included camping trips with axes, gasoline, chainsaws, knives. In my nightstand I keep cherished photos of a long ago trip to New England. The boys built a rock lined fire pit, chopped firewood, cut down saplings and built wobbly camping structures. After a hard day's work the Testosterone Trio sat around the fire, looking excessively manly. The paterfamilias was captured with a cigar hanging out of his mouth, his progeny clowning around with hatchet (relax, no one was injured). All three look tired, dirty, sweaty, and extremely happy. Not a single antibacterial wipe, Gameboy, or soda in sight but somehow - miraculously - everyone survived.

But this ancient rite of manliness (though it no doubt violated who knows how many misguided but well meaning child labor and safety ordinances - just think of the second-hand smoke!) pales in comparison to those practiced by less effete societies:

Men are made, not born... Unlike women, men must take actions, undergo ordeals, or pass tests in order to become men...

Culture after culture features rites of passage from boyhood to manhood. Only select men can achieve “manhood,” and it must be won individually. In many cultures’ initiation rituals, older males systematically inflict pain and injury on young ones, who must hold up without flinching, or face life-long shame. Men who fail the test become “negative examples … held up scornfully to inspire conformity.” The particulars of these rituals vary by cultural context. In fishing communities, would-be men go on dangerous expeditions into the water. In hunting cultures they risk their lives in hunting exploits. In societies with frequent warfare, young males must participate in war – and, for some, kill an enemy – before being called a man...

These practices recur in cultures worldwide that “have little else in common,” including those with frequent or infrequent war, and simple or complex social organization. In East Africa, boys endure “bloody circumcision rites by which they become true men. They must submit without so much as flinching under the agony of the knife. If a boy cries out while his flesh is being cut, if he so much as blinks an eye or turns his head, he is shamed for life as unworthy of manhood.”... Pueblo Indian boys aged 12–15 are “whipped mercilessly…[and] expected to bear up impassively under the beating to show their fortitude.”

How very odd that we in this most affluent and industrialized of nations claim to admire the naturalness and simplicity of aboriginal cultures. And yet we seem to be turning our backs on the acquired wisdom of uncounted generations of human experience - on what is an otherwise universal human practice: the ritual toughening of young men by enduring hardship; the offering of a chance to prove (or is it to learn?) that they can endure pain and suffering without complaint? And perhaps this exercise is not only intended to teach others. Perhaps it is intended to allow the participant to take his own measure, to discover the strength that lies within?

Is it really a sign of our cultural advancement that, where once we sought to toughen our children, to build character and endurance against a world that is often harsh and unforgiving, we now seek to shield them against even the most innocuous of life's little misfortunes? With affluence and the relative absence of discord we have become hypersensitive to discomfort; so much so that we now strive not only to erase all signs of strife from our present lives, but to airbrush all mention of violence and unpleasantness from the past as well:

"If you want peace, prepare for war.” Thus counseled Roman general Flavius Vegetius Renatus over 1,600 years ago. Nine centuries before that, Sun Tzu offered essentially the same advice, and it’s to him that Vegetius’s line is attributed at the beginning of a film that I saw recently at Oslo’s Nobel Peace Center. Yet the film cites this ancient wisdom only to reject it. After serving up a perverse potted history of the cold war, the thrust of which is that the peace movement brought down the Berlin Wall, the movie ends with words that turn Vegetius’s insight on its head: “If you want peace, prepare for peace.”

What happens when we, as a nation, cease to study war?

To study history is to gain perspective, to place current events in their proper context in the larger scheme of human (and non-human) events. Without it, the daily drip-drip-drip of news stories becomes a trickle, then a current, then a raging flood that sweeps us up and carries us away, powerless to steer our course much less raise our heads from the maelstrom long enough to sense our direction. It is perhaps the crowning irony that so many of those who argue that the use of force is inherently wrong or misguided would also have us forsake the study of warfighting. Without a thorough knowledge of history - and of the history of war - we are at the mercy of any expert with an agenda. We cannot judge for ourselves, because we lack the knowledge, whether they are telling us the truth.

We mistake the counterfeit for the genuine, a John Kerry (who spent all of four months in Vietnam) for a Mack Owens. And so we are misled, to our detriment:

...opponents of the war have drawn the Vietnam analogy like a gun, seeking from the very beginning to argue that Iraq and Vietnam were analogous. Ted Kennedy famously called Iraq “George Bush’s Vietnam.”

I have argued on several occasions that the parallels between the two conflicts at the operational and strategic levels of war were nonsensical. But that has never stopped the opponents of the current war from invoking the conventional Vietnam War narrative, which goes something like this: The U.S. was predestined to lose the Vietnam War because the Vietnamese Communists were too determined, the South Vietnamese too corrupt, and Americans were incapable of fighting the kind of war that would have been necessary to prevail.

...The fact is that the outcome of a war is not predetermined. Who wins and who loses are determined in the final instance by the respective actions of the combatants. Victory or defeat depends on decisions actually made and strategies actually implemented. We came close to victory in Vietnam, but then threw it away.

The 1972 Easter Offensive provided the proof that Vietnam could survive, albeit with U.S. air and naval support, at least in the short term. The Easter Offensive was the biggest North Vietnamese offensive push of the war, greater in magnitude than either the 1968 Tet offensive or the final assault of 1975. Despite inevitable failures on the part of some units, all in all, the South Vietnamese fought well. Then, having blunted the Communist thrust, they recaptured territory that had been lost to Hanoi. Finally, so effective was the eleven-day "Christmas bombing" campaign (LINEBACKER II) later that year that the British counterinsurgency expert, Sir Robert Thompson exclaimed, "you had won the war. It was over."

Three years later, despite the heroic performance of some ARVN units, South Vietnam collapsed against a much weaker, cobbled-together PAVN offensive. What happened to cause this reversal?

First, the Nixon administration, in its rush to extricate the country from Vietnam, forced South Vietnam to accept a ceasefire that permitted North Vietnamese forces to remain in South Vietnam. Then in an act that still shames the United States to this day, Congress cut off military and economic assistance to South Vietnam. Finally, President Nixon resigned over Watergate and his successor, constrained by congressional action, defaulted on promises to respond with force to North Vietnamese violations of the peace terms.

History provides invaluable context that helps refute agenda-laden spin. Contrary to the conventional wisdom rammed down our throats by an anti-war press, the historical record shows that insurgents rarely win wars: (h/t Karl's must-read post on media miscoverage of the war)

Myths about invincible guerrillas and insurgents are a direct result of America’s collective misunderstanding of its defeat in South Vietnam. This loss is generally credited to the brilliance and military virtues of the pajama-clad Vietcong. The Vietnamese may have been tough and persistent, but they were not brilliant. Rather, they were lucky—they faced an opponent with leaders unwilling to learn from their failures: the United States. When the Vietcong went toe-to-toe with U.S. forces in the 1968 Tet Offensive, they were decimated. When South Vietnam finally fell in 1975, it did so not to the Vietcong, but to regular units of the invading North Vietnamese Army. The Vietcong insurgency contributed greatly to the erosion of the American public’s will to fight, but so did the way that President Lyndon Johnson and the American military waged the war. It was North Vietnam’s will and American failure, not skillful use of an insurgency, that were the keys to Hanoi’s victory.

Though, as Karl notes, defeating a determined insurgency generally takes 8-10 years, a recent DoD study showed that insurgencies similar to the one in Iraq lose about 60% of the time.

What does this all mean?

It means that despite the chorus of derision which greeted George Bush's speech last Tuesday (and which has followed every pronouncement that all America needed to do to win this war was "stay the course") it appears the President is not as stupid as his critics make him out to be. His understanding of military history is not flawed. On the contrary, it matches precisely the recollection of those, like Mack Owens and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, who were actually there - on the ground - making history rather than protesting the war or telling America that if we withdrew from Vietnam there would not be any bloodbath. Melvin Laird recalls:

The truth about Vietnam that revisionist historians conveniently forget is that the United States had not lost when we withdrew in 1973. In fact, we grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory two years later when Congress cut off the funding for South Vietnam that had allowed it to continue to fight on its own. Over the four years of Nixon's first term, I had cautiously engineered the withdrawal of the majority of our forces while building up South Vietnam's ability to defend itself. My colleague and friend Henry Kissinger, meanwhile, had negotiated a viable agreement between North and South Vietnam, which was signed in January 1973. It allowed for the United States to withdraw completely its few remaining troops and for the United States and the Soviet Union to continue funding their respective allies in the war at a specified level. Each superpower was permitted to pay for replacement arms and equipment. Documents released from North Vietnamese historical files in recent years have proved that the Soviets violated the treaty from the moment the ink was dry, continuing to send more than $1 billion a year to Hanoi. The United States barely stuck to the allowed amount of military aid for two years, and that was a mere fraction of the Soviet contribution.

Yet during those two years, South Vietnam held its own courageously and respectably against a better-bankrolled enemy. Peace talks continued between the North and the South until the day in 1975 when Congress cut off U.S. funding. The Communists walked out of the talks and never returned. Without U.S. funding, South Vietnam was quickly overrun. We saved a mere $297 million a year and in the process doomed South Vietnam, which had been ably fighting the war without our troops since 1973.

I believed then and still believe today that given enough outside resources, South Vietnam was capable of defending itself, just as I believe Iraq can do the same now. From the Tet offensive in 1968 up to the fall of Saigon in 1975, South Vietnam never lost a major battle. The Tet offensive itself was a victory for South Vietnam and devastated the North Vietnamese army, which lost 289,000 men in 1968 alone. Yet the overriding media portrayal of the Tet offensive and the war thereafter was that of defeat for the United States and the Saigon government. Just so, the overriding media portrayal of the Iraq war is one of failure and futility.

Vietnam gave the United States the reputation for not supporting its allies. The shame of Vietnam is not that we were there in the first place, but that we betrayed our ally in the end. It was Congress that turned its back on the promises of the Paris accord. The president, the secretary of state, and the secretary of defense must share the blame. In the end, they did not stand up for the commitments our nation had made to South Vietnam. Any president or cabinet officer who is turned down by Congress when he asks for funding for a matter of national security or defense simply has not tried hard enough. There is no excuse for that failure.

Santayana had it half right. Those who fail to learn the lessons of history - or who lie about them - doom others to repeat them. And as Victor Hanson so eloquently reminds us, without knowledge of our military history and traditions, how will future generations of Americans tell the counterfeit coin from the genuine? How will they know when they are being lied to, or given only half the story? How will they know, as with the American media's misleading characterization of the Tet offensive as a defeat for our side, history is repeating itself?

Try explaining to a college student that Tet was an American military victory. You’ll provoke not a counterargument—let alone an assent—but a blank stare: Who or what was Tet? Doing interviews about the recent hit movie 300, I encountered similar bewilderment from listeners and hosts. Not only did most of them not know who the 300 were or what Thermopylae was; they seemed clueless about the Persian Wars altogether.

It’s no surprise that civilian Americans tend to lack a basic understanding of military matters. Even when I was a graduate student, 30-some years ago, military history—understood broadly as the investigation of why one side wins and another loses a war, and encompassing reflections on magisterial or foolish generalship, technological stagnation or breakthrough, and the roles of discipline, bravery, national will, and culture in determining a conflict’s outcome and its consequences—had already become unfashionable on campus. Today, universities are even less receptive to the subject.

This state of affairs is profoundly troubling, for democratic citizenship requires knowledge of war—and now, in the age of weapons of mass annihilation, more than ever.

...Military history reminds us of important anomalies and paradoxes. When Sparta invaded Attica in the first spring of the Peloponnesian war, Thucydides recounts, it expected the Athenians to surrender after a few short seasons of ravaging. They didn’t—but a plague that broke out unexpectedly did more damage than thousands of Spartan ravagers did. Twenty-seven years later, a maritime Athens lost the war at sea to Sparta, an insular land power that started the conflict with scarcely a navy. The 2003 removal of Saddam refuted doom-and-gloom critics who predicted thousands of deaths and millions of refugees, just as the subsequent messy four-year reconstruction hasn’t evolved as anticipated into a quiet, stable democracy—to say the least.

The size of armies doesn’t guarantee battlefield success: the victors at Salamis, Issos, Mexico City, and Lepanto were all outnumbered. War’s most savage moments—the Allied summer offensive of 1918, the Russian siege of Berlin in the spring of 1945, the Battle of the Bulge, Hiroshima—often unfold right before hostilities cease. And democratic leaders during war—think of Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Richard Nixon—often leave office either disgraced or unpopular.

It would be reassuring to think that the righteousness of a cause, or the bravery of an army, or the nobility of a sacrifice ensures public support for war. But military history shows that far more often the perception of winning is what matters. Citizens turn abruptly on any leaders deemed culpable for losing. “Public sentiment is everything,” wrote Abraham Lincoln. “With public sentiment nothing can fail. Without it nothing can succeed. He who molds opinion is greater than he who enacts laws.” Lincoln knew that lesson well. Gettysburg and Vicksburg were brilliant Union victories that by summer 1863 had restored Lincoln’s previously shaky credibility. But a year later, after the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Petersburg, and Cold Harbor battles—Cold Harbor claimed 7,000 Union lives in 20 minutes—the public reviled him. Neither Lincoln nor his policies had changed, but the Confederate ability to kill large numbers of Union soldiers had.

Ultimately, public opinion follows the ups and downs—including the perception of the ups and downs—of the battlefield, since victory excites the most ardent pacifist and defeat silences the most zealous zealot. After the defeat of France, the losses to Bomber Command, the U-boat rampage, and the fall of Greece, Singapore, and Dunkirk, Churchill took the blame for a war as seemingly lost as, a little later, it seemed won by the brilliant prime minister after victories in North Africa, Sicily, and Normandy. When the successful military action against Saddam Hussein ended in April 2003, over 70 percent of the American people backed it, with politicians and pundits alike elbowing each other aside to take credit for their prescient support. Four years of insurgency later, Americans oppose a now-orphaned war by the same margin. General George S. Patton may have been uncouth, but he wasn’t wrong when he bellowed, “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.” The American public turned on the Iraq War not because of Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore but because it felt that the battlefield news had turned uniformly bad and that the price in American lives and treasure for ensuring Iraqi reform was too dear.

Finally, military history has the moral purpose of educating us about past sacrifices that have secured our present freedom and security. If we know nothing of Shiloh, Belleau Wood, Tarawa, and Chosun, the crosses in our military cemeteries are just pleasant white stones on lush green lawns. They no longer serve as reminders that thousands endured pain and hardship for our right to listen to what we wish on our iPods and to shop at Wal-Mart in safety—or that they expected future generations, links in this great chain of obligation, to do the same for those not yet born. The United States was born through war, reunited by war, and saved from destruction by war. No future generation, however comfortable and affluent, should escape that terrible knowledge.

He is right. No future generation should. But this generation is, and has. And future generations are learning even less than we did. And the price, the terrible price, is becoming evident in the charlatans who masquerade as lovers of peace, but who are really nothing more than appeasers and apologists for tyranny. They will sell our children into slavery, and we will be in no position to lift a finger:

For the Peace Racket, to kill innocents in cold blood is to buy the right to dialogue, negotiation, concessions—and power. So students learn to identify “insurgent” or “militant” groups with the populations they purport to represent. A few years ago, a peace organization called Transcend equated the demands of the Basque terrorist group ETA with “the desires of the Basque people”—as if a “people” were a monolithic group for whom a band of murderous thugs could presume to speak. The complaints that Transcend made about the Spanish government’s “blockade positions”—its refusal to cave to terrorist demands—and the Spanish media’s lack of “objectivity”—their refusal to take a middle position between Spanish society and ETA terrorists—are standard Peace Racket fare. Similarly, during Saddam’s dictatorship, “peace scholars” wrote as if Iraq were equivalent to Saddam and the Baath party, entirely removing from the picture the Shiites and Kurds whom Saddam’s regime subjugated, tortured, and slaughtered.

The recipes for peace that flow from such thinking seem designed not only to buttress oppression but to create more of it. For if democracies consistently followed the Peace Racket’s recommendations, what they’d eventually reap would be the kind of peace found today in Havana or Pyongyang.

...Warblogger Frank Martin described his visit to the military cemetery at Arnhem, in the Netherlands, where a teenage guide said that the Allied soldiers “were fighting for bridges; how silly that they would all fight for something like that.” Martin was outraged: “I tried to explain that they weren’t fighting for bridges, but for his and his families’ freedom.” That teenager articulated precisely the kind of thinking that peace professors seek to instill in their students—that freedom is at best an overvalued asset that can hinder peacemaking, and at worst a lie, and that those who harp on it are either American propagandists or dupes who’ve fallen for the propaganda. In March, Yusra Moshtat, an associate of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, and Jan Oberg, director of the foundation, wrote that “words like democracy and freedom are deceptive, cover-ups or Unspeak.” And in a 1997 speech at a Texas peace foundation, Oscar Arias, ex-president of Costa Rica and founder of his own peace foundation, described the American preoccupation with freedom versus tyranny as “obsolete,” “oversimplified,” and above all “dangerous,” because it could lead to war. In other words, if you want to ensure peace, worry less about freedom. Appease tyranny, accept it, embrace it—and there’ll be no more war.

Time and technology may change, but human nature is one thing we can be reasonably sure will remain disappointingly constant. In fact, advances in technology makes the defects in human nature even harder to deal with as they lessen the protective effects of borders, distances between unfriendly nations, and even the most stringent of security measures. Add to this the fluid nature of travel and immigration, which bring people of increasingly disparate cultures and beliefs into close contact, and you increase - not decrease - the potential for violent conflict.

Why, then, do some people persist in the naive belief that we can talk our way out of conflicts with people who resolve their political differences by strapping bombs to suicidal maniacs? Is it really logical to think we can avoid war by burying our heads in the sand and pretending violent people don't exist? Do we avoid crime by dispensing with police and ignoring (or engaging in dialog with) criminals?

Of course we don't.

No one wants war, least of all the men and women who volunteer to fight it. In fact, if you don't support this war, you may be surprised to know that some of us who do hate war just as much as you do. But we don't want our children to have to fight. And having read history, knowing the lessons of Vietnam - not the lessons of a man who only spent 4 months of a 12 month tour there and to this day tells people no massive bloodbath occurred after we left, but the lessons of men who stayed long enough to see what was really going on - we are saddened, and grateful, and angry as hell. And we don't ever want to make that mistake again.

No, not the one you think. The mistake of asking too many men to die for a cause that America ends up turning her back on. Because that is just too much to ask of our armed forces. When we ask them to fight and die, they need to believe that it will accomplish something. They need to believe their sacrifice was for a reason.

They don't need to be told, after they've lost an arm or a leg,

"Nevermind. We weren't serious, after all. We can't afford this." When America goes to war, we had damned well better mean it.

Posted by Cassandra at 07:26 AM | Comments (31) | TrackBack

May 29, 2007

Silent As The Grave

MONTJOY: Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry,
If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,
Before thy most assured overthrow:

KING HENRY V: I pray thee, bear my former answer back:
Bid them achieve me and then sell my bones.
Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus?

- Henry V

They stand crisply at attention in neat rows, spines ramrod straight, dress whites gleaming in the early morning fog.

They are the perfect soldiers: loyal, steadfast, courageous under fire. But of all the soldierly virtues, there is one which transcends all others.

They are silent.

Like the children they are so often presumed to be, they come when called, go where they are told to go, serve faithfully if not always without question. And when, finally, the last bullet has been fired those who emerge from that bloody crucible return to a world that does not always welcome them with open arms.

How we long for this day. But the sons, husbands, fathers who arrive on our doorsteps seem familiar and yet indefinably altered. In their eyes lurk the barren contours of an undiscovered country, a place with no maps or markers we are capable of understanding. It is as though, while they were gone, a frame in a movie projector simply froze for a few minutes while somewhere in the distance, all hell broke loose.

In another room someone is screaming. There are sounds of violence. A slap, shattering glass, and then a loud crash and the sound of inconsolable weeping. Then, suddenly, the movie starts up again as though nothing has occurred and we reach for our popcorn and shift restlessly in our seats, vaguely disturbed. How perfectly awful. Did any of that really happen? Better not to talk about it.

But for the people in that far off room, nothing will ever be the same again. And now there is only an ominous quiet. It is the silence of the grave; a blank slate that allows us to scribble anything we wish upon it:

It’s become common among Democrats to argue for withdrawing from Iraq in the name of the troops. In January, for instance, New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler introduced a bill titled the Protect the Troops and Bring Them Home Act. In February, Congresswoman Lynne Woolsey sent a letter to Bush arguing that it was “time to truly support our troops—by bringing them home.” Fifteen members of Congress signed on. Senators, too, have been willing to support this idea. Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland said in a February floor speech that “the best way to support our troops serving in Iraq is to say ‘NO’ to the president’s escalation of the war.”

Haunted by Vietnam, Democrats are determined to express support for the troops. This is admirable. The truth of the matter, however, is this: many troops in Iraq, perhaps even most of them, want to stay and fight. That doesn’t mean that we should stay in Iraq any longer. It does mean, however, that if Democrats want to bridge the divide between themselves and the military—an effort further complicated by their opposition to the war—they’re going to have to recognize that arguing in the name of the troops isn’t going to work.

Indeed, what can America possibly learn from the troops when there are so many disinterested public servants willing to speak out on their behalf? The enforced silence of our men and women in uniform is not only politically expedient but downright necessary. Without it, so many things would be impossible.

Only if the troops remain silent will the public be safe from the shameless manoevering of partisan political hacks determined to hide the truth:

"As officers you will have the responsibility of communicating to those below you that the American military must be nonpolitical and recognize the obligation we owe the Congress to be honest and true in our reporting to them, especially when it involves admitting mistakes or problems," said Gates, who has worked for seven presidents.

Only by refusing to listen to the military can we avoid being duped by party insiders who shamelessly abuse their positions for political gain:

Petraeus doesn't want to play politics. He tells friends that he doesn't vote in presidential elections, to maintain his political independence. In that, he emulates Gen. George Marshall, the architect of the Allied victory in World War II.

...The smartest thing Petraeus has done is to draw Congress into his confidence, as co-manager of the new strategy. In his testimony yesterday, he promised regular progress reports and pledged to tell Congress if he decides that the new strategy can't succeed. The flip side is that Petraeus will tell Congress whether he needs more troops, which may prove to be the case. Petraeus helped draft the new counterinsurgency field manual, which warns that successful operations "often require a high ratio of security forces to the protected population." It's hard to believe that 21,500 more troops will be enough to protect an Iraqi population in the midst of a civil war.

Thankfully, after the Swift Boating of John Kerry and Jack Murtha, most Americans know who is really on the side of the troops. Astonishingly, there are still a few unbiased experts willing to protect the public from unreliable firsthand reports from the front lines. In the end, the only trustworthy reports on the Surge will come, not from Iraq, but from Capitol Hill.

Many lawmakers will formulate their position on the basis of a coming report from Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the multinational force, to the president. Unfortunately, based on behavior in his last command in Iraq and the manner in which he received his current position, Petraeus is not a reliable source for an unbiased assessment.

On this weekend of remembrance, it is most fitting to recall who really protects America's beloved freedoms: Congress and the media.

Today, I want to encourage you always to remember the importance of two pillars of our freedom under the Constitution - the Congress and the press. Both surely try our patience from time to time, but they are the surest guarantees of the liberty of the American people.

With these two pillars of freedom bravely speaking out on behalf of our armed forces, there's no need for your inconvenient and superfluous opinions.

You needn't, for instance, give permission to be filmed while critically injured or dying. Never fear that your wife, eight year old son, or aged grandmother might stumble across that graphic video of you gasping out your last breaths as your buddies look on in horror. Who could fail to see that the closeup of your charred, bloodsoaked torso was meant as respectful "homage" to your sacrifice, a reverent sacrifice laid on the altar of America's all-consuming need to know?

Don't sweat it if, doped up on morphine, or writhing in agony from a leg blown off by an IED you scream, swear, whimper, say something embarrassing, or are caught sucking your thumb while half conscious. The New York Times has your back. They've decided that Not To See the Fallen Does You No Favor. Besides, if Britney Spears can share her most intimate moments with us surely human dignity is highly overrated. No less a person than Secretary Gates has reminded us: the press is the surest guarantor of our freedoms, and reasonable people do not object to having their freedom guaranteed, do they?

That would be political.

Given a blank freedom check by the Constitution, the Fourth Branch of Government impartially ensures an informed electorate. They enthusiastically support our foreign policy initiatives by repeatedly hyping sensationalistic torture photos from Abu Ghuraib while burying the misdeeds of our enemies. This important work is bolstered by giving millions of dollars in free publicity to the enemy despite evidence that more news coverage leads to increased violence and an upswing in the recruitment of terrorists. So committed are the media to maintaining a completely unbiased editorial 'voice' that they not only refuse to cover the accomplishments of our troops but actively subvert attempts by our government to spread the good news themselves.

These brave freedom fighters never stop protecting us. Whether it's their sacred right to defy grand jury investigations (first guaranteed by the landmark SC decision in Branzburg v. Hayes), to destroy evidence in terrorism investigations, to shield cop killers from justice citing nonexistent federal shield laws, or to publish classified national security memos, we can all breathe a bit easier knowing that professional journalists are the sturdy pillar upholding the rule of law.

So don't you dare question which side the press is on, or observe that unlike Congress or the President no one elected them and there seem to be no checks to balance their power; nor do the media brook any attempt to hold them accountable for the damage they do. The press, not the military, are the surest guarantors of our freedoms.

Likewise, when Senator Reid declares to all the world the war is lost before even a third of the Surge troops are in place, though he is neither your Commander in Chief nor the Secretary of State, nor is he even in Iraq (making it difficult at best for him to assess our progress) it is inappropriate for you to have an opinion on the matter. Certainly there are some who view Congress as public servants. There are even some who hold to the antiquated notion that Congress is merely one of three co-equal branches of government with a limited role defined by the Constitution; one which, oddly enough, does not include unilaterally surrendering to the enemy while our troops are in harm's way (especially without consulting the other 500-odd members of that august body).

Be that as it may, the very survival of our Republic demands you keep silent and allow various members of Congress to imply they are guaranteeing your freedom by shielding you from the enemy you volunteered to fight.

Remember, you fight so that others may dream of freedoms you must never be permitted.

So even if asked, do not presume to tell us what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, whether you think it is going well or going poorly. Let those far more capable than yourselves speak on your behalf.

Just shut up and fight. After all, the law says you must not be political.

Just shut up and die, so we can have peace in our time.

CWCID: photos, MaryAnn

Posted by Cassandra at 06:45 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

May 24, 2007

Light, From Darkness

There is a positive river of outrage flowing through the streets and cities of this nation right now; a veritable flood tide of righteous indignation on behalf of America's armed forces. Because unlike Vietnam era war protesters, those who oppose the 21st Century Quagmire support their troops:

Did you know that George W. Bush was a war hero? I know that this development comes as a shock and surprise to many progressives who are familiar with Bush's military career, but he received a Vietnam-era Purple Heart award a few weeks ago in the Oval Office. Seriously.

28%-er Bill Thomas of Copperas Cove, Texas, decided recently to give George Bush one of the three purple hearts that he had been awarded in Vietnam. Bush was so blown over by this gesture that he invited Thomas and his wife, Georgia, to the Oval Office for the presentation...

The medal was presented to Bush, and Thomas said:

...he and his wife came up with the unprecedented idea to present the president with the Purple Heart over breakfast one morning a few months ago as they discussed the verbal attacks, both foreign and domestic, the commander in chielf has withstood during his time in office.

"We feel like emotional wounds and scars are as hard to carry as physical wounds."

Soak that all in for a moment.

If you factor in Laura Bush's lament last week that "...no one suffers more than the president and I do..." because of the conflict in Iraq ........ ..... ......... oh, fark it. I can't even snark this up anymore. Sometimes, true life irony is its own sarcasm. I guess Laura forgot that George isn't losing any sleep over it.

One of the more innovative ways in which the progressyve crowd show their unwavering respect for the troops (but not their mission) is by showering them with clever little pet names like "28 percenters":

the 28%ers, the “loyal bushies”, are the type of people who hurt animals as children, and then grow up as bullies. Imperialism is all they know.

Bush supporter:
Drug, Oil, Defence,[sic] international corportations,[sic] chamber of commerence, loony religious right, union haters, and watchers of the fox follies. Just a start but these are the “die hard” supporters because most of these people have money invested in Bush and have had a pretty good return on their investment up to date.

In other words, the famed lefty virtues of inclusivity, the promotion of diversity, openness to intellectual inquiry and tolerance of other lifestyles and belief systems aside, anyone who disagrees with progressive ideas is obviously either a sociopath or greedy. No bias, closemindedness or kneejerk intolerance here. And naturally, since the Left supports freedom in all its various guises, they would never presume to ridicule the decision of veteran who had risked his life defending the very freedoms they hold so dearly ....not. Especially in the face of evidence that the President does, in fact, care quite deeply about the wounds caused by war.

Even old wounds:

I've never written about Josh Cooley, but not a day has passed since July 7, 2005 that I haven't thought about him.

That was the day I received an email from Sandy Gay, whose husband Norman worked with Josh at the Pasco, FL Sheriff's Office. Josh had been hurt in Iraq two days before. It was bad, and his wife and mother were flying to Germany on orders.

Josh had always thought about joining the military. After all, the Cooley men have served since the Battle of Bull Run. Josh's grandfather was a Marine, as was his father Ed. And his two older brothers served with the Corps in the first Gulf War.

But Ed and his mother Christine didn't want Josh to follow in their footsteps. He went into law enforcement instead, where he became a sniper with the Paco Sheriff's Office SWAT team.

Until 9/11.

Ed tried to talk Josh out of it, although the circumstances must have been familiar to him. Ed had enlisted as soon as he could after his 18-year-old cousin, Edward Monahan Jr., was killed in South Vietnam in 1965.

Wounded near Da Nang in May of 1968, Ed's real injuries were inflicted later.

When Christine had to pay her own way to visit him in Hawaii where he had been medevac'd. When he got back home and was called a baby killer. When he was pelted with eggs. When the military sent his Purple Heart and other decorations via Parcel Post several years after he had left the service.

But after Josh's injury, Ed's wounds started to heal along with his son's.

When he found out the CINC was going to award Josh the Purple Heart, there was a lot Ed wanted to say. And he wanted to make sure he got it right. So he composed a letter:

“When I was notified you were coming today to present my son with the Purple Heart I thought, ‘This is different, but also the way it should be,’ I myself served in Vietnam... upon return I was not treated well by the military or our country.”

“As I stand here today watching you honor my son as well as the other soldiers of our country, I have nothing but pride, honor, and yes dignity, too.

“Not only have you honored my son but you have also healed some old wounds as well.”

And this too, was as it should be:

As Bush read, his eyes got wet. He pulled out his handkerchief and turned away from the cameras. [He then turned back] to Ed and called him a hero.

“I’m sorry it was never said to you before,” the president said, “but thank you for serving our country.”

Then he hugged the old veteran so tightly that Ed thought Secret Service agents standing nearby might intervene. He felt a 36-year burden lift as he hesitantly returned the embrace.

If the reality based community weren't afraid to venture out of their bubble, they might try talking to Rachel Ascione about whether the President grieves for our fallen warriors, whether he just brushes their grief aside lightly:

Ascione wasn't sure she could restrain herself with the president. She was feeling "raw." "I wanted him to look me in the eye and tell me why my brother was never coming back, and I wanted him to know it was his fault that my heart was broken," she recalls. The president was coming to Florida, a key swing state, in the middle of his re-election campaign. Ascione was worried that her family would be "exploited" by a "phony effort to make good with people in order to get votes."

Ascione and her family were gathered with 18 other families in a large room on the air base. The president entered with some Secret Service agents, a military entourage and a White House photographer. "I'm here for you, and I will take as much time as you need," Bush said. He began moving from family to family. Ascione watched as mothers confronted him: "How could you let this happen? Why is my son gone?" one asked. Ascione couldn't hear his answer, but soon "she began to sob, and he began crying, too. And then he just hugged her tight, and they cried together for what seemed like forever."

Ascione's family was one of the last Bush approached. Ascione still planned to confront him, but Bush disarmed her in an almost uncanny way. Ascione is just over five feet; her late brother was 6 feet 7. "My whole life, he used to put his hand on the top of my head and just hold it there, and it drove me crazy," she says. When Bush saw that she was crying, he leaned over and put his hand on the top of her head and drew her to him. "It was just like my brother used to do," she says, beginning to cry at the memory.

Before Bush left the meeting, he paused in the middle of the room and said to the families, "I will never feel the same level of pain and loss you do. I didn't lose anyone close to me, a member of my family or someone that I love. But I want you to know that I didn't go into this lightly. This was a decision that I struggle with every day."

As he spoke, Ascione could see the grief rising through the president's body. His shoulder slumped and his face turned ashen. He began to cry and his voice choked. He paused, tried to regain his composure and looked around the room. "I am sorry, I'm so sorry," he said.

But this is more 'reality' than the reality based community is ready for. It conflicts with how they wish to see the world - a stark, black and white version of The Truthiness in which it becomes more comforting to believe that our leaders are callous and cold (no matter how many military families say that's untrue), that they lie (no matter that the official record says otherwise), that they are using our military (no matter that our armed forces are all volunteer and that they keep volunteering).

The truth is that the world is sometimes an ugly and frightening place full of murder and hatred and misery.

But there are other truths.

There is the truth discovered by Ed Cooley, father to wounded Iraq war vet Josh Cooley, on his long journey out of darkness and back into the light:

"There's a lot of hope out here."

Hope, often, is all we have. But it is enough, and more than enough. Hope propels us onward and upward; when we are mired in darkness it grabs us by the shirt collar and forces us to focus, not on those things we cannot control, but on the things we can.

And that is how miracles happen, for miracles are still possible even in an imperfect world. But if we never reach for things beyond our grasp, if we see only what is wrong with the world and never what is right, we never dare to dream. And oddest of all, if we give up hope, we lose sight of one of the strangest lessons life has to offer: that out of great tragedy and suffering can also come good, and perhaps, a measure of peace:

Ed couldn’t help but compare what was happening with his earlier experience. Some things were the same: a car parked in front of the Fisher House touted “Re-defeat Bush” and “Mission Nothing Accomplished” stickers.

But this time, the Marine Corps were treating the Cooleys like royalty. The military covered their airfare, their hospital housing, some food costs and a rental car. As doctors treated Josh’s burns and fussed over whether to remove the credit-card sized shrapnel from his head, Ed was able to attend a two-day conference on post-traumatic stress disorder.

His own experience told him the physical challenges ahead for Josh would be matched by internal anguish. But he took comfort from the fact Josh would not have to wait years for the right therapies.

“Because I’ll drag his a-- there,” Ed said, sipping coffee in between smokes. “I’ll be able to help him.”

To begin the process, Ed started snapping pictures of his son at each stage of his recovery. The images were tough. They showed Josh with puffy eyes, a swollen tongue, a face that didn’t look like his own.

But down the road, Ed knew that the painstaking healing process would get Josh down. And when that happened, Ed would be there to show his son how far they had come.
***

In July, Ed ducked outside a hospital lodge for a smoke.

He thought he was alone, which was fine with him, but then he saw someone crouched in a corner. It was a small woman talking on her cell phone.

She spoke in an undecipherable sing-song and was Asian in appearance. Until very recently, Ed had known such people by a single word.

“Gook.”

That’s what they called the Vietnamese during the war. It was derogatory, offensive. But it was the way Ed felt.

Until now.

When the woman finished her phone call, Ed struck up a conversation.

He learned she was originally from Laos and now Ohio. Alone, she had come to Bethesda to be with her son, an Army man. He, too, had suffered a head wound in Iraq.

These were the people that we fought for, Ed thought. And now this woman’s son had replicated the sacrifice.

Ed and the woman met again almost every night for a week.

“She was just like a little angel,” Ed said later, describing their meetings. “It was just the nicest thing for me.”
***

During the next few months, hope came in larger doses. Josh opened his eyes, breathed on his own, ate ice chips and then pork tenderloin from his mother’s kitchen. He couldn’t yet walk or talk.

The Cooleys returned to Florida in late September when doctors sent Josh to the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa to continue his rehabilitation.

Coming home for Ed meant leaving the cocoon of Bethesda’s hospital campus and rejoining the world of normal people.

This time, he considered embracing them. He thought about going to church with Gordy Larkin, whose life Josh had saved and who had become a stronghold for Ed. He said hello to strangers instead of looking the other way.

But he also had to face past mistakes. At a fall court hearing in New Port Richey, Ed learned he would lose his driver’s license and serve 30 days of weekend jail time for a DUI he got a few months before Josh was hurt. His decision to drink and drive, he said, was prompted by a disturbing phone call from Josh. The rules of engagement, Josh had complained prophetically, were too strict. They couldn’t just shoot up an abandoned car by the side of the road that might contain a bomb.

“I got stupid,” Ed explained.

Money worried Ed, too. He was on disability from his war injuries and made a little extra on the side shoeing horses. Even with the Marine Corps covering Josh’s medical bills, he feared for his son’s financial future.

The normal people Ed had so long distrusted came through. In Pasco and Hernando counties, they held car washes, motorcycle rides, silent auctions and benefit dinners for Josh, raising tens of thousands of dollars.

***

Difficult days lie ahead.Later this spring, Josh will return to Bethesda to have a plate fitted to the gap in his skull. Then he will continue his rehabilitation in Tampa, where therapists are guiding his first steps and his family delights in watching his shoulders shake when they make him laugh.

They don’t know how much of his old life he will regain.

Ed takes things day by day. He dreams of Josh tagging along on horseshoeing jobs. He hurts watching his son suffer, but it feels good to see the country doing right by him.

Ed doesn’t feel so angry anymore.

“I’m getting there,” he said. “And Josh is going to get there.”

I need a sign
To let me know you're here
Cause my TV set just keeps it all from being clear
I want a reason
For the way things have to be
I need a hand to help build up
Some kind of hope inside of me

I won't give up if you don't give up

Posted by Cassandra at 07:48 AM | Comments (27) | TrackBack

May 18, 2007

Laying The Foundations For Peace

I was excited to get the email, a few days ago. This is the kind of thing we have been asking for: good news we can share, news about what we are doing right in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something positive to counter the constant rain of negativity in the mass media. And it didn't disappoint. The scene was Operation Matador, the subject, Silver Star recipient Corporal Mark Camp:

...then-Lance Cpl. Camp and his company were sent to New Ubaydi on a house-clearing mission. As Camp’s squad entered one of the houses, insurgents hiding in a closet and in an underground crawlspace opened fire, shooting four Marines. Camp, outside, heard the gunfight and immediately ran inside to help. Three separate times he entered and exited the building to recover his squad members and clear the house of insurgents.

On May 11, Camp was again tested. This time, his company was heading to another small town to clear other insurgent strongholds. Camp was standing at the top hatch of his amphibious assault vehicle when he noticed an eerie silence. Camp was instantly on alert – but that could not stop the roadside bomb that detonated at that moment, hitting the vehicle and throwing the man standing next to Camp into a nearby field.

Shrapnel dug into Camp’s right thigh, and the explosion lit his hands and face on fire. He was thrown back into the burning vehicle, and he began beating out the fires all over his body and head.

Then, Camp heard the call of one of his teammates still trapped inside. As he crawled back into the wreckage, heat was cooking off ammunition all around him, ammunition that ricocheted inside even as insurgents continued to fire from outside. And then there was another explosion. Camp fell back out of the vehicle, on fire once more. Again, he beat his body until the flames subsided.

His comrade was still in the vehicle. So Camp went back inside and tried to grip the Marine’s pack, his helmet – anything – but by then Camp’s skin was melting from his hands. Camp later told the Columbus Dispatch, “I [was] screaming for someone to help me . . . someone with fresh hands."

Corporal Camp was not the only one to receive a medal recently. Major Derek Bonaldo received the Bronze Star for his work training Iraqi forces for the difficult work of securing Iraq's future:

For most of his Army career, Derek Bonaldo worked behind a desk as a self-described paper pusher. But on May 1, 2006, he was in the middle of his first firefight near Baghdad, Iraq.

Bonaldo, a major in the 91st Support Division, based in Dublin, was training several Iraqi National Police officers at a checkpoint on the road between the International Zone and the Baghdad Airport when insurgent snipers on a rooftop opened fire.

We happened to be going by and providing support, and we got caught in the fray, the 36-year-old said. We brought in helicopter support, cornered them and got them with help from other units.

It was my first combat tour and my first combat action.

It was a personal choice to go to Iraq, he said, and he was not required to do so. Hes not a Rambo, he said, but he felt that he needed to step up and relieve some troops that had have been on several tours already.

Although he had never trained troops before, he was assigned to an 11-member transition team as a logistics adviser to the Iraqi National Police and a liaison between the national police and the U.S. military.

His goal was to make the national police first responders self-sustainable. He instructed them in battlefield operating systems during training and prepared them for combat. He also kept his superiors informed on the Iraqi officers readiness.

The aim is to wean the Iraqi government off U.S. support and show them they can do it themselves, he said.

The main challenge was showing them there is an infrastructure, he said. Its in its infancy but its there on the Iraqi side.

By infrastructure, Bonaldo means items such as fuel, ammunition, uniforms and food.

His team was one of hundreds in Iraq, at least as of December, when there were 5,000 military transition personnel in the country, he said.

Recently, my husband returned to Baghdad from a tour of the outlying provinces of Iraq. He was pleasantly surprised at much of what he saw. An embedded reporter from the LA Times describes their stop in Haditha. It is the desert but it was, my husband said, the most beautiful place he saw in his travels. A place he could imagine living one day:

On a recent day, U.S. forces walked the downtown streets, talking to shopkeepers, inquiring whether Marines are treating residents with respect.

"Yes, yes," said Mohammed Alnear, whose shop, Cleopatra Ceramics, sells pottery materials. At a bicycle shop, the proprietor said he remembered "the terrible days" when insurgents with AK-47s roamed the streets and residents "were like scared animals, hiding." With encouragement from tribal sheiks, young men are enlisting in the local police force. Still, the force is still only half of its authorized strength.

Marine commanders say their success in reducing insurgent violence in Haditha and other areas of Al Anbar is an indication that a "surge" of troops, like that being tried by the Army in Baghdad, can succeed. But they note that a surge is a beginning, not an end.

Rasheed indicated that he remained concerned that the Americans, in their haste to hand over control to Iraqis, might leave behind a City Council whose members are, in effect, insurgents in disguise, waiting for the U.S. departure.

"We have to be careful," Rasheed said through an interpreter. This time, it was the Marines' turn to listen and nod.

One key to winning back the trust of Iraqis everywhere is the discipline of Marines and soldiers. Jim Mattis, in Iraq for a visit, counsels Marines that sometimes the most effective weapon is a friendly wave: (via W. Thomas Smith Jr.)

As he met recently with U.S. Marines at several locations across the sprawling Al Anbar province, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis explained what he termed "wave tactics" to combat the Sunni Arab insurgency in its longtime stronghold.

Mattis, who led Marines against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003, and insurgents in Fallouja in April 2004, is urging his troops to show respect to ordinary Iraqis and exercise restraint in the use of deadly force to prevent civilian deaths and injury.

The Marine Corps has even asked a consultant about the best way to wave. Answer: Make eye contact, don't just wave mechanically like a beauty queen on a float.

For Mattis and the Marine Corps, the message is not new. As he led Marines into Iraq in 2003, the general sometimes called "Mad Dog" ordered his troops to be aggressive in fighting Iraqi forces but to show "soldierly compassion" toward civilians and prisoners.

No doubt this will be spun by some on the left as some startlingly new tactic, but it's old news for Mattis, who has always advocated a blend of 'chivalry and ferocity': taking the fight to the enemy with gusto but displaying gentleness and courtesy to innocent civilians. It 's just another twist on the Marine motto, "No better friend, no worse enemy".

In his talks to the Marines, Mattis was quick to emphasize that nothing in his call for restraint toward civilians should be seen as limiting an aggressive response toward insurgents.

"Kill the right people and protect everybody else, protect, protect, protect," he said in Haditha.

If there is a seeming contradiction between the two parts of his message, it's one that Mattis believes Marines have to master.

"If you can't ride two horses" at the same time, Mattis told Marines at Al Asad, "you have to get out of the circus in this part of the world."

In Baghdad, Mohammed tries to reason with those who have no grasp of history:

We must keep fighting those criminals and tyrants until they realize that the freedom-loving peoples of the region are not alone. Freedom and living in dignity are the aspirations of all mankind and that's what unites us; not death and suicide. When freedom-lovers in other countries reach out for us they are working for the future of everyone tyrants and murderers like Ahmedinejad, Nesrallah, Assad and Qaddafi must realize that we are not their possessions to pass on to their sons or henchmen. We belong to the human civilization and that was the day we gave what we gave to our land and other civilizations. They can't take out our humanity with their ugly crimes and they can't force us to back off. The world should ask them to leave our land before asking the soldiers of freedom to do so.

The cost of liberating Europe was enormous in blood and treasure and thereafter it took half a century of American military presence to protect Europe's nations from subsequent threats—now if that made sense during a cold war, and it did, then I don't understand why would anyone demand a pullout from Iraq (and maybe later the middle east) when the enemies are using every evil technique, from booby trapped dead animals to hijacked civilian aircrafts to kill us and destroy the human civilization.

Yes my friends, I will call for war just as powerfully the bad guys do and I must show them that I'm stronger than they are because those do not understand the language of civilization and reason. They understand only power, and with power they took over their countries and held their peoples hostages. Everything they accomplished was through absolute control over the assets of their nations through murder, torture, repression and intimidation.

The policy of the United States and her allies needs to adjust to make better use of the energy God - or nature or whatever you name it - blessed them with. We need to see a firm policy not afraid of making tough decisions replace the Byzantine debate of withdrawal. This became America's destiny the day it became a superpower. A destiny to show responsibility toward her own people and toward the world, and running away from this responsibility won't do any good.

Otherwise those who prefer to bury their heads in the dirt today will be cursed forever for abandoning their duty when they were most capable. I don't understand why someone who has all the tools for victory would refuse to fight the enemy that reminds us every day that it's evil with all the daily beheadings, torture and violations of all humane laws and values.

Some will keep on blaming America and her policies and they will consider anything America did and does wrong whether America stayed or left, fought or ran away, negotiated or boycotted. There will always be those who blame America for everything that goes wrong in this world but that doesn't mean America has to listen to them. America instead should listen to the spirit of America and what it stands for.

Reaping the fruit won't be today, it will be in the future after patience and great fighting.

He could not know this, but thousands of miles away, the leader of the free world was echoing those very sentiments.

I know. I was sitting not ten feet from him as he spoke these words to a group of military veterans:

I'm always amazed at the men and women who wear our uniform. Last week ...I was in California at Fort Irwin. And I had a chance to visit with some who had just come back from Iraq and some who were going over to Iraq, and it just amazes me that these young men and women know the stakes, they understand what we're doing, and they have volunteered to serve. We're really a remarkable country, and a remarkable military, and therefore we owe it to the families and to those who wear the uniform to make sure that this remarkable group of men and women are strongly supported ...

I tried to put this war into a historical context for them... I told them that they're laying the foundation of peace... the work we're doing today really will yield peace for a generation to come. And part of my discussion with them was I wanted them to think back to the work after World War II. After World War II, ... after we defeated Germany and Japan, this country went about the business of helping these countries develop into democracies. Isn't it interesting a country would ... have a bloody conflict with two nations, and then help democracy succeed? Why? Because our predecessors understood that forms of government help yield peace. In other words, it matters what happens in distant lands.

And so today, I can report to you that Japan is a strong ally of the United States. I've always found that very ironic that my dad, like many of your relatives, fought the Japanese as the sworn enemy and today one of the strongest allies in keeping the peace is the Prime Minister of Japan. Something happened between when old George H. W. Bush was a Navy fighter pilot, and his boy is the President of the United States. Well, what happened was the form of government changed. Liberty can transform enemies into allies. The hard work done after World War II helped lay the foundation of peace.

How about after the Korean War? Some of you are Korean vets, I know. I bet it would have been hard for you to predict, if you can think back to the early '50s... that an American President would say that we've got great relations with South Korea, great relations with Japan, that China is an emerging marketplace economy and that the region is peaceful. This is a part of the world where we lost thousands of young American soldiers, and yet there's peace.

I believe that U.S. presence there has given people the time necessary to develop systems of government that make that part of the world a peaceful part of the world, to lay the foundation for peace. And that's the work our soldiers are doing in the Middle East today. And it's necessary work. It is necessary because what happens in the Middle East, for example, can affect the security of the United States of America. And it's hard work, and we've lost some fantastic young men and women, and we pray for their families, and we honor their service and their sacrifice by completing the mission, by helping a generation of Americans grow up in a peaceful world.

I cannot tell you how honored I am to meet with the families of the fallen. They bear an unbelievable pain in their heart. And it's very important for me to make it clear to them that I believe the sacrifice is necessary to achieve the peace we all long for.

All of us, American and Iraqi, Republican and Democrat, long for peace. But it very much matters what kind of peace we settle for. There was peace under Saddam, but it was the peace of the graveyard; of the plastic shredder, the torture and the rape room, of brutal repression and the silencing of dissent. We did not care that thousands of Iraqis were being brutally slaughtered because their anguished screams never made it into our living rooms. There was, you see, no free press in Iraq.

And so, because as CNN president Eason Jordan admitted, the media kept far too much news to themselves, we slept the sleep of the complacent.

No more. Our eyes have been opened, and those who rail against the administration for not intervening in Darfur have no business telling us to break our promises to the children of Iraq, the ones who (my husband tells me on the phone) appear like magic when a military convoy drives into town asking for candy, toys, and above all, sunglasses!

Why do they hate us so? Why are the children of Iraq so afraid of us?

What we do in this life matters. Forms of government matter. This would be a far different world, had it not been for the Marshall Plan, for the reconstruction of a war torn Germany and Japan. But these things took time. And patience.

They took vision. We are laying the foundations for peace in a land we never brutally conquered, nor occupied because we wished to show mercy, and because our own political divisions forbade the deployment of an occupying force.

This is new territory, an undiscovered country. But America is the greatest nation on the face of the earth. If not us, who? If not now, when? If we do not reach out a hand across the rapidly growing cultural gap between stagnant Islam and the constantly changing West, what hope is there to avoid a larger confrontation?

We are laying the foundations for peace, foundations that could last for generations. And men like Harry Reid say we cannot afford to wait a few months.

The man is an ant on the monster truck tire of history.

Posted by Cassandra at 12:56 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

May 10, 2007

Strength And Honor

Could someone deliver us
And send us some kind of sign?
So close to giving up
'Cause faith is so hard to find

I don't believe in Fate. Not in the sense of an unalterable destiny, some grim, unavoidable future that sweeps us up and dashes us against the rocks of predetermined events. Such visions reduce us to insensate flotsam bobbing in a maelstrom we can neither control nor escape.

Perhaps this is hubris.

If it is, I'd rather be guilty of overweening pride than fall victim to the kind of attenuated ennui that afflicts so many of my generation; the effete moral lethargy that automatically equates faith with oppression, disagreement with censorship, the capacity for moral judgment with racism and intolerance. But oddly enough, though I doubt the existence of a fixed destiny, I've never for a moment doubted that some things happen for a reason.

Perhaps they happen to offer us a choice, a fork in the road. What we do, when we come to that fork, reveals our character for all the world to see:

America is caught up in a debate of whether we should bring our troops home or if we should make one last attempt to bring peace and stability to Iraq. Yet, we don’t pay attention to the details of the war. Last weekend, an American hero received one of the Army’s highest honors – a Silver Star. His award was largely unnoticed, overshadowed by Paris Hilton’s incarceration.

Late last year, Major James Gant and his men were returning home to Baghdad after weeks of fighting insurgents. Gant and his advisory team were riding in up-armored HMMWVs. These were not the HMMWVs of Jessica Lynch’s era. These were mini-tanks on tires with bullet proof-glass, blast-proof armor plate and turret mounted machineguns. His men, Iraqi National Police, were riding in soft-skinned trucks.

Gant and his interpreter, Mack, in front of their up-armored HMMWV

Al-Qaeda had planned an elaborate running ambush in which they hoped to destroy the unit that had been their nemesis for more than a month. They had prepared three separate ambush sites along a four kilometer stretch of road. Gant and his commandos were forced to run a gauntlet of machinegun fire, mortar attacks and IEDs. The story of Gant’s, fight that day is an amazing tale of heroism, filled with scenes you would expect to see on the silver screen. Gant repeatedly risked his life to save others. The insurgents had planted IEDs hoping that an explosion would force the embattled convoy to stop.

Gant ordered his driver to drive straight for the first IED. As they rolled within twenty feet, the device detonated. Miraculously, Gant’s HMMWV was unscathed. Gant kept the column moving through a vicious gun battle. Another IED lie only five hundred yards ahead. Again, they went after the planted explosive and, again, a thunderous explosion failed to disable Gant’s vehicle. Almost clear of the ambush, Gant noticed a third IED. He continued to push forward, bringing his convoy safely through the torrent of fire. Had Gant hesitated, good men would have died.

Last weekend, Major Gant spoke at his award ceremony. He has personally made the sacrifice to bring peace and stability to the people of Iraq, and he continues to sacrifice every day. Here is what a soldier, a hero, had to say about our current debate:

The best friend I have ever had is an Iraqi. He is the best man I have ever known. He fought with me on 11 December. He can’t go home after a hard day of work. He can’t see his father or mother or brother. He can’t live any type of normal life because every time he leaves the [Green Zone], people want to kill him. I bet you would not be so fast to want to leave here if you knew him.

If you knew Colonel Dhafer, a great commander and leader, ...one of the best friends I have ever had, if you knew Major Fadil, who pulled me out of a burning [HMMWV]…, if you knew Captain Khais, if you knew Salaam, or Abbas, or Ali; all are brave warriors who fought with incredible courage that day and I would gladly and without hesitation lay my life down for all of them. If you knew them as I do, you would not be so quick to want to leave. If you could see with your own eyes the evil that is perpetrated on innocent men, women and children here on a daily basis, you would not be so quick to call it quits.

Colonel Dhafer, you and brave men like you are the hope and future of your country. I wish I were the hope and future of my country. Because if I were, I would not leave you until this job was done. No matter the sacrifice. No matter the price.

Colonel Dhafer congratulating Major Gant

Is it any wonder that so many Americans don’t understand what we are doing in Iraq, when the Main Stream Media does not tell us stories like that of Major James Gant and his Iraqi comrades? How can we understand the Iraqi people when we don’t even know what our sons and daughters are doing to bring peace and stability to the people of Iraq?

Iraq is so much more than car bombs and IEDs.

Richard S. Lowry is the award winning author of the best selling book, “Marines in the Garden of Eden,” Berkley, New York, 2006. He is an internationally recognized military historian and author. Richard served in the U.S. Navy Submarine Service from 1967-1975 and spent the time from 1975 to 2002 designing sophisticated integrated circuits for everything from aircraft avionics to home computers. Richard turned to serious writing after 9/11 and published “The Gulf War Chronicles,” iUniverse, New York, in 2002. He is currently working on his next book project. “The Surge” will tell of General Petraeus’ attempt to win the peace in Iraq. For more information on Richard and his work, visit www.marinesinthegardenofeden.com.

I haven't told you what prompted my little dissertation on Fate. This morning something magical happened, or at least it seemed so to me.

Someone stopped by and left a comment on something I wrote a long time ago:

How often have I wished that this were all just a bad dream I could wake up from? That there would be no more somber dawns when I check my email hoping for a joke and learn, instead, that somewhere halfway across America a uniformed Marine waits on a silent doorstep, dreading that moment when he must forever shatter someone's world? Or know that someone like me is haunted by the memory of suddenly stilled laughter, a remembered joke, or just the gladdening sight of that brightly haloed energy that seems to forever surround the young? They seem to get younger every year. To those of us with children of our own, they often seem just babies. Our children. Our darlings.

Our own.

The thing about Wash is this: I didn't know him, but someone I love did. Someone I have never met, but who has come in that odd alchemy that is the Internet to be incredibly dear to me. And so I mourn for him too. He has become family. I don't understand this, but it is one of the strange changes that began to transform me on September 11th. I don't think I will ever be the same person I was before that awful morning. It was so much easier for me to shut things out then, to pretend they had nothing to do with me. To close my eyes and pretend they weren't there.

But the thing I understand, though I didn't know Wash, is that he was there when it counted. It was important to him to be there. Whatever he thought in the still hours of the night when the stars slip out one by one to stand watch with lonely men half a world away, he wasn't a child or a fool or, as those links I didn't click on stridently averred, someone who died for George Bush. He was a man, a warrior, someone who took pride in what he did. Someone who, even though he joined the Marines to fight, did his job well and without complaint.

He was, quite simply, a sheepdog.

And so, when I read things like this, even though I may be momentarily tempted to feel bitter, to become cynical, to throw in with the 'it's not worth it' crowd, I have to stop and remember who I am. And more importantly, who they were. And are: the Americans and the Iraqis who stand between us and those who would destroy everything we hold dear.

It's easy to make generalizations, to lump people into categories. But what if Iraq judged us all by Harry Reid? Dear God in heaven, what if they judge us by our Congress? That is not the test.

The burden of civilization has always been carried upon the backs of a very few. Most of us are free riders; we coast on the efforts of far better men than we can ever hope to be. And if we are relying on the mainstream media to bring us tales of heroism and honesty and integrity, I fear we shall wait a very long time. Yet those tales exist.

Ask Major Gantt.

And then put this war, with all its casualties and daily setbacks, its moments of triumph and bitter shame, into the context of history. This is a letter, not a binding parliamentary vote. How often have bills come up in our own Congress only to wither on the vine for lack of support when push came to shove? And as to our losses, though they are grievous they too have a place in history. The total number of casualties we've suffered since 2001 is roughly comparable to our losses in one day at the battle of Normandy.

One day.

Yet we say we are tired of war. We have had enough of suffering. We, the richest nation on earth, cannot afford to go on.

But we support the troops, who believe in what they are doing. Oddly, they are not too tired; though they don't spend their time relaxing in comfortable surroundings, shopping and surfing the Internet as we here at home do. They are too busy. I will give up when they say it is time to give up, and not one moment sooner.

Because they are the ones who have bought and paid for this fight with their blood. They are the ones who are there, seeing it all first hand. They are the ones I trust to tell me when it is time, and we owe them something.

We owe them a little bit of intestinal fortitude. Because everything in life is a choice, and it's what you do when you come to those difficult forks in the road that shows what you are made of. Somehow it seems to me that our road is not all that hard.

And our path is crystal clear; at least if honor still means anything.

Posted by Cassandra at 03:22 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

May 01, 2007

A Willful Blindness, II

For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then face to face:
now I know in part;
but then shall I know
even as also I am known.
- 1 Corinthians 13, verse 11

Tuesday dawns slowly as I eye my alarm clock with loathing. Raindrops drum on the roof like giant fingertips on some invisible tabletop as a lone bird pipes merrily in the tree just outside my bedroom window, cheekily ignoring the now slackening shower. Any moment now I shall spring forth with alacrity from betwixt the marital sheets to do battle with the ungodly. Any moment now...

As I wait for Alacrity to make her appearance I snuggle under the covers for a few more moments. Sadly, my mind refuses to remain as luxuriously indolent as my still drowsy limbs. To hell with Alacrity - time to make the donuts. I shuffle out to the kitchen to prepare that steaming concoction that helps me hang on, but as it turns out the real jolt comes courtesy of Driscoll and Lileks:

It's good for an old liberal like me to read history and recognize that Eisenhower was no dolt and Adlai Stevenson was no giant. And to read about Joe McCarthy and realize that, opportunist and blowhard that he was, he was hardly the embodiment of evil that we liberals cherished as an enemy. We made the people he attacked into heroes but McCarthyism was very small potatoes. Alger Hiss was not the victim of a witch hunt; he was a witch. The big story was taking place in Russia and Eastern Europe, in China, and in Cuba, places where evil ruled with an open hand, but a great many Democrats refused to see it. This refusal was a reaction against anti-communists such as Richard Nixon — if he said the sun rose in the east, then we would look off to the west and maybe build mirrors there so as to be able to argue the point — and this gave the Democratic party a reputation for appeasement that has crippled us ever since.

Dear God in heaven, did the earth just shift on its axis? Garrison, we hardly knew ye! Suddenly nothing makes sense any more; I am adrift in a universe bereft of God, moral absolutes, and (apparently) capital letters and punctuation marks:

i drink myself of newfound pity
sitting alone in new york city
and i dont know why.

Oh. Never mind. Stopped too soon:

It's an interesting admission. You might almost expect him to add that his ceaseless ad hominem depictions of the other side (As he puts it in his latest book: "hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, see-through fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, hobby cops, misanthropic frat boys, lizardskin cigar monkeys, jerktown romeos, ...") might have blinded him to the fact that we do have enemies, and he might want to spill as much ink worrying about the utterly illiberal forces we're fighting as he spends sneering at the Current Occupant. Alas:

And now something similar is happening to Republicans. They are following the Current Occupant down a road that will be disastrous to them for years to come. They are defending the indefensible.

See, he was wrong before, but he's absolutely right about this now.

The Editorial Staff has often noted the regrettable tendency of the reality based community to proudly display their latest outbreak of Tourette's syndrome as though it were some priceless bon mot. It only increases the deliciousness that such precious pearls are invariably displayed on the bumpers of legions of late-model Asian compact cars belching noxious fumes into Gaia's fragile biosphere; all whilst barrelling down MD I-270 at a galloping 50 mph during rush hour. Read this, oh neo-neocons, and weep!

We are all entitled to our own opinions
But not our own facts

Words to live by. Ah, but whose set of facts? Whom should we believe? That is what we seem to fight over, more than anything. Every day brings a new parade of Generals lined up for our inspection like toy soldiers, pressed and starched. Righteous outrage stiffens their spines. They couldn't speak out before they earnestly inform us, but now at long last these huddled masses who yearned so long to breathe freely have piped up from retirement to tell us what has been on their minds.

They knew all along. We were being deceived, led down the proverbial garden path, and They Knew.

They just didn't tell us that the Deceivers were deceiving us.

Except somewhere, a still, small voice inside the back of my head keeps whispering, "If everything they say is true, doesn't that make them willing accomplices in The Deception^TM

Doesn't that make them deceivers too?" No, they are men of Integrity, because they are Bringing The Truthiness now. And We Must Not Question Their Integrity, nor their Patriotism. In fact, we must not ask any questions at all. It's unAmerican. How does a lie become a lie? How do transparently false but politically useful bits of trickery like the ubiquitous cakewalk meme take on a life of their own?

Easy. They have the ring of truthiness. And we are lazy. We believe what we want to believe so long as it fits our preconceived version of reality. We distrust George Bush and his evil neocon warmongers, so any smear against them is accepted at face value. No need for actual facts. The calumny we spread may not be literally true, but somewhere, somehow we're convinced they represent a larger, Emotional Truth. Amusingly enough, I see in my morning travels throughout the Intertubes that Arianna Puffington, cheeky thing, has strayed off the reservation again:

Arianna Huffington, of all people, points out a problematic issue with George tenet's new book.

Does this sound familiar? A senior Bush administration official plays a key role in selling the Iraq war debacle to the American public, resigns a few years later, and then tries to distance himself from Bush and the war by writing a book or talking to Bob Woodward, portraying himself as a poor, hapless victim who knew the truth at the time and really, really wanted to tell it, but, somehow, just had no choice but to go along.
What else could he do?

Each version of this contemptible tale shares the same fatal flaw. It requires that the remedy that was readily available — resignation — did not exist.

Dale Franks snarks from the sidelines:

In this he shares the same sort of attitude as former antiterrorism guy Richard Clarke, who was oh-so-angry at the neocons, but apparently, not quite upset enough to prevent sticking it out until retirement.

Look, people of good faith can argue endlessly about what happened between 9/11 and the Iraq invasion, and what went wrong, and why. But, there's something unseemly about working for years in an administration—apparently with enough loyalty and distinction to get your pretty blue PMF medal ribbon—then turning around and crapping all over your former employer while attempting to hold yourself blameless.

Me-ouch, grrrlfiend! This has always bothered me about the unseemly parade of truth-tellers, repressed memory sufferers, leakers-who-speak-only-on-the-condition-that-they-not-be-identified-because-they-are-not-authorized-to-speak-to-the-media, and retrospective navel gazers who only after several years of collecting a generous pension from Uncle Sam, have discovered they can afford to indulge their consciences. They all share something in common. They have already betrayed someone's trust once, yet we're supposed to believe them now?

It's their word against the people on the front lines; the ones who are taking the full brunt of public disfavor for making unpopular decisions and - what's more - sticking with them. Why does anyone pay attention to these people, or at the least why don't we examine their various pronouncements more critically, or at least as critically as we do those of other public servants?

Why do we argue so much over foreign policy? In a must-read essay, Henry Nau argues that our perspectives on reality cause us to weigh the same information differently, bringing this or that subset of facts to the fore to support our world view:

Theorists of international relations have long recognized three principal ways to think about the world and select and evaluate facts. The realist perspective thinks about the world primarily in terms of a struggle for power, alliances, and the threat and use of force. The liberal perspective looks at it more in terms of expanding cooperation and complex interdependence through trade, negotiations, and international institutions. The ideational or what political scientists today call constructivist or identity perspective sees it largely in terms of what people and states believe — the ideas, norms, and values they share that shape their discourse and identity. Many of us are familiar with these perspectives or simplified versions of international relations theories (the theories themselves become endlessly complex), but we may not fully understand how directly they influence our day-to-day debates.

It's a great piece and well worth reading. But at the end of the day whether you take a realist, a liberal or an indeationist approach to foreign policy it's hard to ignore the fact that the guy with the C4 vest strapped to his body holds a virtual trump card over your too-precious theories. This is what I can never get past.

Over the weekend I thought about our two worlds; the world I live in, where people leave doors unlocked and wave at their neighbors, drive on mostly paved roads and know that if something bad happens we can call 911 and the police, ambulances, or fire trucks will arrive promptly to help us deal with whatever "emergency" threatens. And that other world. I actually saw someone call 911 because their child had a nosebleed.

A nosebleed.

And then there is the world which caused a man I once knew to take his own life. He couldn't reconcile the world we live in with that other world; a world where, when you drive down the road everything is a potential threat. Shadows are hiding places. Every man, woman, or child who passes is sized up as a threat risk.

He sojourned there for a time, a stranger wandering in a strange land. And then he returned and his old world, the one which gave him life, opened its arms to gather him in again. But he couldn't let go of that dark place, not entirely.

Was he broken on that dark wheel? Was his sight distorted by his travels in that far away land or did the scales just fall from his eyes, allowing him to see things as there really are? Don't tell me it's a matter of perspective, that it's all relative. A friend of mine's small daughter has leukemia. Not the kind that killed my nephew. This type is more treatable. Yesterday I asked, "How's the munchkin?"

He said, "Things are going well - she's heading into the hardest phase of treatment, but she's holding up. We all are."

I said, "Well, what I always think after a particularly bad migraine you really savor even the tiniest things. Like just a day without pain. Even colors seem brighter - I can spend minutes just looking at the sunlight on a wall simply because it doesn't hurt to do it. That is a joy some people never get to experience." He laughed. The thing is - the bad things, evil, pain, death, murder - they have always been out there. They have always lurked in our hearts.

A thin veneer of civilization is all that separates us from the utter chaos that is in parts - but not all - of Iraq and Afghanistan right now.

Forms of government matter. Ideas matter. They have the power to transform lives, but only if they are backed by the will to enforce law and make justice a living presence rather than a dusty tool on some politician's shelf. And it requires a willful blindness to speak of consensus and dialogues and mutual understandings in a world where madmen are still willing to play the trump card of force.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:00 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

April 11, 2007

We All Fight Under One Flag

 

A Glimmer of Hope

Richard S. Lowry

Here are some pictures and stories you won’t see on TV or in your hometown newspapers.

 

A little girl walks through a street in Old Baqubah as American and Iraqi Soldiers patrol the neighborhood April 3. The mission was part of an ongoing effort by Soldiers of Company A, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Iraqi Army soldiers and Iraqi policemen to clear the neighborhood of insurgents and secure the local marketplace. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Antonieta Rico)

 

Black Hawk Troops find persistence key to victory on
Haifa Street
By Spc. Alexis Harrison
2nd BCT, 1st Cav. Div. Public Affairs
Multi-National Division – Baghdad PAO

BAGHDAD — Troops from 4th Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division patrol the Haifa Street area daily, shadowed by scores of children who greet them at every stop they make to ask for chocolate or a soccer ball.

Most of the Soldiers don't mind handing out a couple sweets for the children to enjoy while they trek through the war-torn neighborhood the children call home.

The "Black Hawk" Troop, commanded by Capt. Chris Dawson, who hails from Lima, Ohio, provides an essential service to residents who've been through so many violent times: peace of mind.

1st Lt. Brian Long, a fire support officer and "Blue” Platoon’s leader from Jacksonville, Fla., said there's nothing more important than getting to know the people in the area and addressing their concerns.

He said that even months after the heaviest of fighting happened, people are still coming to his troops with information and questions on what's happened in recent months.

The troop took over the area after a heavy bout of insurgent activity forced many to flee their homes or hide for their own safety. Several days of fighting occurred before the Cavalry troops finally slaked the violence, allowing many people to come back and start to live their lives.

Attacks on Coalition Forces have since dropped by more than 50 percent in the area. Dozens of bodies were found along sectarian fault lines in the area, but since the new security plan has been established, the Black Hawk troops have not found a single body lying in the street or anywhere in their sector.

Bringing peace to neighborhoods like this one is one of the major improvements the Soldiers from the 2nd “Black Jack” Brigade have been able to accomplish since they arrived last year.

However, as one Soldier recounts, it wasn't as peaceful the last time he was here.

Staff Sgt. Jebediah Arthur was with 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd BCT, 1st Cav. Div., a few years ago when the 1st Cavalry Division was in Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom II. He said heavy fighting was a regular occurrence for him and his troops.

The Moran, Texas native said that Iraqis weren't always as friendly as they are now. They used to shy away from any contact with Soldiers and wouldn't provide more than a cold stare or an unfriendly gesture.

Now, everywhere the Soldiers go, they are greeted like visitors to an almost second home. The people, in the community Arthur and his comrades visit, speak freely to them and often provide an inside look into what's really happening in their community.

"It's finally gotten to where they can come and talk to us and work with everyone," Arthur said. "Acting professionally helps, but they actually see the results of the information they give us. I think that's been the key to our success over here this time."

The troops have been busy with other duties than just patrolling the busy streets. Recently, a medical operation headed by the troop and other Soldiers from the brigade took place to bring some much-needed care to the residents.

The leaders of the troop realize how important it is to continue their work and not to give up on the people of the area.

Long said that the coalition forces have gained a lot of momentum against violence in the area.

"Being out there every day is a good way to dispel the rumors that we're not doing anything but inhibiting the growth of these neighborhoods," Long said. "We are seeing improvements, and we are appreciated by the people we interact with."

"In 10 years,” Arthur said, “we'll probably be vacationing here.”

1st Lt. Brian Long, fire support officer and "Blue" Platoon leader from Jacksonville, Fla.,
watches some Iraqi children play soccer in the Karkh neighborhood of Baghdad April 5.
(U.S. Army photo by Spc. Alexis Harrison, 2nd BCT, 1st Cav. Div. Public Affairs)

 

Capt. Chris Dawson, a native of Lima, Ohio and commander of Troop B, 4th
Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry
Division, leads a playful chant with some Iraqi children in Baghdad’s Karkh
neighborhood April 5. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Alexis Harrison, 2nd BCT, 1st
Cav. Div. Public Affairs)

 

Staff Sgt. Jebediah Arthur, a Moran, Texas, native and fire support team chief
with Troop B, 4th Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team,
1st Cavalry Division, patrols the streets of Baghdad’s Karkh neighborhood,
shadowed by Iraqi children requesting chocolate and soccer balls April 5. (U.S.
Army photo by Spc. Alexis Harrison, 2nd BCT, 1st Cav. Div. Public Affairs)
Iraqi Army soldiers have been clearing homes and businesses throughout the Yarmouk district of the nation’s capital city. The Iraqi Army soldiers also cleared the area of trash piles and abandoned vehicles which had allowed terrorists to place and hide IEDs.

(U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Quinn Robertson, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment)

Minnesota Army National Guard Soldiers and Iraqi citizens of Al Batha recently restored 15 kilometers of Al Batha city streets in southern Iraq.

Before





After

The old bridge to the village of Bahkan, Iraq before the 1-125 Field Artillery civil military
operations team began the project of constructing a new bridge through local
contractors. (Photo by Capt. Paul Rickert, 1-125 Unit Public Affairs Representative)

A Minnesota National Guard Soldier shakes hands with an official from Bakhan, Iraq on
the newly constructed bridge to the village surrounded by canals. (Photo by Capt. Paul
Rickert, 1-125 Unit Public Affairs Representative)

FOB Hammer, Iraq – Col. Fadhil Abbas, commander of the Iraqi Army’s Bey May Eagles, had dinner with members of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team’s 3-1 Cavlary Regiment Sunday at the Bes Maya Range Complex near FOB Hammer east of Baghdad.

“My brothers, I am so excited that you are all here,” said Abbas. “I look forward to working with you as one family. The Iraqi team and the American team is one team and I want to have a high level of cooperation. My Iraqi soldiers love their American Soldiers as brothers.”

Abbas also assured Kolasheski that the tribal division that had hindered Iraq’s army in the past was not a problem with the unit under his command. “All my soldiers fight under one flag,” said Abbas, as he pointed to the Iraqi flag on his wall. “No more clans or separate religions here. We all worship one God and fight under one flag.”

 

 

Words to live by.

Posted by Cassandra at 01:47 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

March 26, 2007

The Beast Within

“It is well that war is so terrible
or we should grow too fond of it.”

A few months ago, I found a Web site loaded with pictures and videos from Iraq, the sort that usually aren't seen on the news. I watched insurgent snipers shoot American soldiers and car bombs disintegrate markets, accompanied by tinny music and loud, rhythmic chanting, the soundtrack of the propaganda campaigns. Video cameras focused on empty stretches of road, building anticipation. Humvees rolled into view and the explosions brought mushroom clouds of dirt and smoke and chunks of metal spinning through the air. Other videos and pictures showed insurgents shot dead while planting roadside bombs or killed in firefights and the remains of suicide bombers, people how they're not meant to be seen, no longer whole. The images sickened me, but their familiarity pulled me in, giving comfort, and I couldn't stop. I clicked through more frames, hungry for it. This must be what a shot of dope feels like after a long stretch of sobriety. Soothing and nauseating and colored by everything that has come before. My body tingled and my stomach ached, hollow. I stood on weak legs and walked into the kitchen to make dinner. I sliced half an onion before putting the knife down and watching slight tremors run through my hand. The shakiness lingered. I drank a beer. And as I leaned against this kitchen counter, in this house, in America, my life felt very foreign.

I've been home from Iraq for more than a year, long enough for my time there to become a memory best forgotten for those who worried every day that I was gone. I could see their relief when I returned. Life could continue, with futures not so uncertain. But in quiet moments, their relief brought me guilt. Maybe they assume I was as overjoyed to be home as they were to have me home. Maybe they assume if I could do it over, I never would have gone. And maybe I wouldn't have. But I miss Iraq. I miss the war. I miss war. And I have a very hard time understanding why.

The condemnation was swift, as though a raw nerve ending had been untimely exposed: "You're sick, twisted, perverse." "I don't believe you ever served." "You're a disgrace to the uniform." From whence did this sudden anger spring, this harsh judgment from the protected?

Not all were so eager to condemn. They too had felt that strange tug. Others, less inclined to judge what they could not understand, felt only regret mixed with a a sense of indebtedness:

There are many reasons I'm so serious about supporting our military men and women, why I feel it's a moral obligation. It's not just a sense of "they have suffered for me," though that is certainly part of it. What really pulls on me and compels a response is the warfighter's loss of innocence due to actions taken on my behalf.

...One former Marine friend has told me that he still habitually runs mental threat assessments (and plans countermeasures) on every person he encounters. He also once described his training and wartime experience as discovering, harnessing and ultimately mastering the beast inside him that we all have, one that lies dormant unless awakened by experience or intent. And Lex has written of the strange obsession the pilot finds in the violence of bombing runs. More recently, a soldier still on the ground in Iraq wrote of "war cocaine."

Mockenhaupt continues:

At a party several years ago, long before the Army, I listened to a friend who had served several years in the Marines tell a woman that if she carried a pistol for a day, just tucked in her waistband and out of sight, she would feel different. She would see the world differently, for better or worse. Guns empower. She disagreed and he shrugged. No use arguing the point; he was just offering a little piece of truth. He was right, of course. And that's just the beginning.

... One reason I feel compelled to support our veterans is the gift they give of themselves; in many ways, they lose their innocence so that I can keep mine.

But of what does that innocence consist; how real is it? I can't help but think the ire Mockenhaupt's words aroused was really no more than anger at having one's pretentions exposed for all to see. He spoke of something we prefer to keep hidden, awakened the ever present fear of our true nature, smoothed over with a too fragile layer of civilization.

I have never been to war. For a woman, perhaps the closest analogous experience is childbirth. But even here society displays the same almost primal fear of something they cannot control, of a process older than time.

Having a child is about as different from going to war as two experiences can possibly be. The first gives life, the second rips it away. And yet, like war, carrying another life within you for nine months and nursing it yourself changes a person in ways someone who has never done these things cannot fully appreciate. I tend to think even being fully awake and aware during childbirth does this. Pain is not something anyone looks forward to, and yet there is something to be said for facing and overcoming it; for learning that neither fear nor pain has the power to turn you into a quivering jellyfish. And there is nothing to compare with that exhausted yet triumphant moment when they place your son over your heart and you feel him move, and know that you did this. For a moment, time seems to stop and the world shrinks to a tiny, light-filled space encompassing only the three of you. And nothing will ever be that perfect, or that peaceful, again.

The other thing which amazed me about motherhood was how exquisitely attuned I became to my small sons, how alert I was to the tiniest differences in their cries that meant they were hungry as opposed to merely tired or overstimulated or lonely or coming down with a virus. How they would wake just as I fell asleep each night, though we were never on the same schedule. Articles on parenting almost invariably cautioned me not to "lose" myself in this new experience. I always thought this unutterably stupid. How could I "lose" me? If anything, something had been added and not subtracted from who I had been. This heightened sensitivity served a purpose. It allowed me to empathize with and care for a totally dependent infant unable to articulate his own needs. What kind of responsible adult repudiated such a tool? When it was no longer needed, it would go away.

And I was not made "less" because I temporarily cared for someone weaker than myself, because I performed somewhat menial tasks. These jobs still needed to be done and it required my judgment to do them well. I always wondered at the insecurity and fear which made so many of my sex recoil from motherhood, from survival skills ingrained as deeply in their natures as their DNA. I wonder if it is not that same insecurity and fear that drove those readers to condemn Brian Mockenhaupt; the knowledge that deep down inside, they are no different, no better, than he:

Armed Liberal wrote about the problem of those who 'keep their hands clean,' never hunting, buying meat prepackaged and without an awareness of the moral cost. I disagree: there is no moral cost. We are monsters, who butcher though it creates mounds of gore: who sever heads, and find it moves us though we know not why.

But it isn't killing that makes us monsters. We are exactly that same kind of creature, whether we have ever killed or not.

The moral problem of 'the clean hands' is that it is an illusion. It makes people believe they are better than they are, and therefore that others can also be better than they can be. It creates a class of people who feel clean, because they have never felt blood on their hands.

Yet all these things arise from things buried deep in the genetic code. You cannot walk away from them. The failure to experience these things does not mean you would not react to them in just the same way as everyone else: it only means that you cannot understand how you would react, and how others do.

The man with clean hands is just the same as the hunter. It is only that he does not know it. He does not understand that part of his soul, as it lurks beyond his experience. He comes to believe that there is a kind of human that is and can be clean: perhaps that sweet, aged lady on the corner, who in her youth broke necks every night before dinner.

Failing to understand what Man really is, he opens himself more than is wise, and defends himself less. The man with the clean hands believes in diplomacy but not the force that makes diplomacy viable. He believes in staying clean, because he believes it makes him better than you. He does not understand that it only makes him blind.

This is not a call to amoralism, but precisely the opposite. It is a call for true morality, which can only begin with awareness of sin. It can only come from a recognition of how deep-set, how permanent, how personal sin is in each of us.

It is only in that way that we can begin to put real chains on sin: by recognizing the truth about it. We must learn to face the truth about ourselves, so that we can better ourselves: we must learn to face the truth about others, so we will recognize when murder is in their hearts.

We have the capacity to be devils or angels; what lies beneath is neither innately good nor innately evil. It is, rather, the choices we make which drive us toward heaven or hell. If we fear anything, it ought to be the cloying moral paralysis that leads to a denial of the darkness in human nature: both that in other men, and in our own hearts.

Posted by Cassandra at 11:07 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

March 19, 2007

Fools and Idiots

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

-Julius Caesar, Act 2 scene 2

Quite some time ago I read a thing that, quite literally, left me speechless.

I love words. They are the tools I use, albeit often poorly, to argue, to urge, to harry, to convince, to restore confidence when it seems to be flagging.

To acknowledge debt, to say farewell. But though a million responses came to mind to what I read that day, for once I had no desire to argue with it. It seemed to me that the lofty sentiment advanced by Mr. Cavett for our consideration - that there is nothing worth fighting, worth dying for; that we humans are merely the sum of our most primitive survival instincts, was so obscene that it merited no reply.

So it seemed to me that day. And yet I have been troubled by his words ever since, for a nation which cannot see what is wrong with that idea is a nation gone adrift. Of course, that is only one opinion and I am only one person. And yet I cannot think of anything that would make me take it back.

I would, quite literally, give my own life before I would accept a world in which people who believe that were in charge. And so I submit for your consideration, if not your reply, these words:

I have a statement: Anybody who gives his life in war is an idiot.

I guess I left off the quotation marks to let the words have their full effect. They aren’t mine, but I’m related to them. They’re my Uncle Bill’s words, and his credentials for uttering the remark are a shade better than mine.

He may well have been the sole Marine to have survived driving landing barges on three bloody invasions in the South Pacific. I asked an old Marine vet once how rare Bill’s survival was. He was gifted of speech: “I’d say survivors of what your uncle did could probably hold their reunion in a phone booth and still have room for most of Kate Smith.” (We’ll pause while youngsters Google.) “My guess is that your uncle is unique.”

Bill said that aside from knowing that any minute was likely to be your last, the worst part of the job was having to drop the landing barge’s front door so the guys could swarm out onto the beach. Despite the hail of bullets against that door, he had to drop it, knowing that the front five or six guys would be killed instantly.

The phrase Bill hated most was “gave his life.” That phrase is a favorite of our windbag politicians; especially, it seems, the dimmer ones who say “Eye-rack.”

“Your life isn’t given,” I remember him saying, “it’s brutally ripped away from you. You’re no good to your buddies dead, and when the bullets start pouring in you don’t give a goddamn about God, country, Yale, your loved ones, the last full measure of devotion or any other of that Legionnaire patriotic crapola. You just want you and your buddies to see at least one more sunrise.”

Bill also served on land and experienced something so god-awful that he thought he would go mad: “Tom [his best friend] and I were trotting along, firing our rifles, and I turned to say something to Tom and his head was gone.” (Bill had great difficulty telling this. I guess I felt honored that he had not been able to speak of it for years.) He said the worst part was that while still holding the rifle, the body, now a fountain, continued for four or five steps before falling. He hated to close his eyes at night because that ghastly horror was his dependable nightly visitor for years — like Macbeth, murdering sleep.

...The other word Bill hated was “sacrifice.” Sacrifice is something you give up in order to get something in return. What good are we getting from this monstrous error? Cooked up as it was by that infamous group of neocons (accent on last syllable) who, draft-averse themselves, were willing to inflict on the (largely unprivileged) youth of this country their crack-brained scheme for causing democracy to take root and spread like kudzu throughout that bizarre and ill-understood part of the world, the Middle East.

What service is this great country getting out of all this tragedy, other than the certainty that historians will ask in disbelief, “Was there no one to stand up to this overweening president?”

I cringe at the icky, sentimental way the president talks about what we owe to the people of plucky little Iraq. You’d think we all grew up ending our “Now I lay me down to sleep…” with “… and please, Lord, be good to Iraq.” They detest us now, along with just about everybody else. Personally, I don’t give a damn what happens to Iraq, and don’t think it’s worth a single American life. Or any other kind. Haven’t philosophers taught us the immorality of destroying something of infinite value — like a human life — in order to achieve a possible good? I guess not.

I have a confession to make. I never made it to the end of that article. I bailed in the middle of Mr. Cavett's recounting of the time he and his buddy thought it would be amusing to startle his shell-shocked uncle with a firecracker.

There are valid reasons not to support this war. Mr. Cavett argues none of them.

Nor does he bother to refute any of the arguments his opponents (many of them Marines and soldiers who support them so strongly they are willing to give - yes, give - their lives to defend them) put forth. Why bother? They are, by Uncle Bill's definition (and he has unimpeachable moral authority to opine on this matter) idiots.

Nor need we be unduly dismayed by Mr. Cavett's own childish cruelty. With age comes wisdom and hopefully some measure of understanding and compassion. In adulthood, Mr. Cavett has forsworn firecrackers for the far more important task of pointing out fools and idiots to his readers.

Mr. Cavett worries about a future in which historians will ask: “Was there no one to stand up to this overweening president?”

Surely he is not surprised at the failure of his own side to stand up for what they believed in. After all, by his own argument, reasonable folk have a decent regard for their own survival.

Only fools and idiots insist on fighting for what they believe in.

The comments are closed on this post.

Posted by Cassandra at 05:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 15, 2007

Operation Iraqi Truth

In the Washington Times, Roy Blunt waxes... downright blunt about the situation on the ground:

House Democrats had an opportunity last week to send an unambiguous message of strength and resolve to our troops in harm's way in Iraq, to our allies and enemies around the world and to Americans here at home.

Instead, they used the occasion to announce a timetable for wholesale retreat, declare their intention to hand over command-and-control authority in Iraq to 535 commanders in chief on Capitol Hill and, already on a roll, float the bizarre idea to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and import hundreds of the most insidious elements of the worldwide terrorist network to the United States to process like common criminals. Quite a week, I would say.

Tomorrow Democrats will attempt to follow up that performance by bringing their plan to committee for executing their slow-bleed strategy in Iraq. But what we understand of the product now is enough to tell me their plan would yield disastrous results.

As the daughter of a Navy Captain who served in Vietnam and the wife of a currently serving Marine Colonel, I am appalled. Yes, I read the newspapers. But I do not incline to the koolaid-swilling, rush blindly off the cliff brand of press gang loyalty which cannot recognize problems when they stare me right in the face.

On the other hand, I am even less friendly to the my-ears-are-shut-to-anything-that-contradicts-my-world-view brand of Bush hatred which roots its deeply philosophical opposition to this war in fevered descriptions of the President's facial tics; or, when that doesn't work, launches into paranoic rants about how cabals of Jews control the sanctum sanctorii of government, or screams (oddly, while betraying not a trace of fear) that we now live in a police state where our civil rights have been eroded beyond hope of repair.

Odd how the very people who think Amerikkka is a militaristic police state also (paradoxically) think this fascist Götterdämmerung was ushered in by Bush's puppetmasters, The Jooos. It does not seem to have figured into the logical computations of these brainiacs that not only are Jews underrespresented as a demographic in the military, but historically (arguing, as always, against self-interest) Jews have been the most hostile as a religious group to the war on terror; two small data points which might lead a rational observer to the conclusion that the Democratic party's persistent attempts to invoke the spectre of Leo Strauss and his neocon minions are little more than the ravings of vicious anti-Semites.

On the otter heiny, it could be just a clever ruse.

But how did we ever get to this pass? How did we ever get to the point where large swathes of the American public give oxymoronic responses to poll questions about the war? "We support the troops, but we don't support the war." "Bring the troops home by 2008 but don't leave until Iraq is stable." "Congress is pushing too hard but we have more confidence in Congress than the White House."

Got confusion? I know I do. Can you imagine how the troops feel over in Iraq and Afghanistan, facing sniper fire and IEDs, separated from their families for months and years at a time, watching their friends get blown to bits and cut in half? How would you feel, if you read the papers every day and saw a war you didn't recognize, a never-ending parade of gloom and doom with no acknowledgment of your successes, never a report of the things you'd accomplished? Only a one-sided feast of death and dismemberment that praised the enemy's every move and cast you as a helpless, duped victim?

I know how I'd feel. Lost. Hurt. Confused. Betrayed.

How did we get to the point where we allow Congress to say they support our troops while undercutting everything they're trying to accomplish?

Let there be no confusion on that point. That is exactly what is happening. That is exactly what we, the People, are allowing our public servants, to do in our names. Is this truly our will?

It has happened because our so-called free press have abused their freedom but We, The People have not called them to account either. The media are a business and we are the consumers of their product. If you pay for a whole car and only half, or two-thirds of a car is delivered to you, would you not be dissatisfied? Certainly you would. If you pay for a 3-bedroom house and receive only a 1-bedroom house, would you recommend that builder to your friends? What about if you paid for a brand new car, yet put up the hood and found, not a brand new engine, but an old, defective one? Would you pay for that?

Of course you wouldn't, because you wouldn't pay for shoddy goods.

So why do we make major decisions, decisions of national and even global import, based on news passed to us by national media who continue to deliver half, or one-third, of the war news to us? Why do we not call them to account when they report to us that four mosques - four entire buildings - easily verifiable information - have been destroyed and fail to correct that information for a month and a half? Why do we allow them to continue to flog old news? When they continue to report, a good two years after the fact, that Joseph Wilson discredited those 16 words in the President's State of the Union address when multiple CIA sources from the Senate Select Intelligence Committee investigation testified UNDER OATH that not only was his "investigation" NEVER REPORTED to the White House, (and therefore Wilson's claim that the White House ignored his investigation was a lie) but that rather than debunking the idea that Iraq sought (not bought) yellowcake from Niger, his trip underscored it for most CIA analysts. Why are there not a flood of letters to the editor and cancelled subscriptions each time this mendacious tale appears?

I'll tell you why: because most people don't know it's not the truth. Just as most people don't know the other half of the story on the war. Yes, the violence has been bad in Iraq, but do you know the other side of the story? Have you noticed how all of a sudden, the number of stories on Baghdad seems to have diminished to a trickle? We are told there were no "good news" stories because there were none to tell. Now there are good news stories, but oddly, few of them seem to be making the front pages. Why is that?

What did make the papers this week? The news that General Peter Pace angered gay rights groups with a remark that he thought homosexuality was immoral. Do you know what else he said during that interview? Of course you don't. It didn't get reported:

During a broad discussion about the situation in Iraq, Pace said the U.S. military would not be able to fully succeed in its plan of sending 21,500 more combat troops and up to 7,000 support troops to Iraq if the Democrats are able to pass their proposed legislation.

The Democrats' plan, which centers on the withdrawal of all U.S. combat forces by September 2008, includes requirements that until then troops spend a minimum amount of time at their home bases before being redeployed.

The required rest periods would stop the U.S. military from reaching its plan of having 20 combat brigades deployed to Iraq. And at times, it could leave as few as 14 brigades on the battlefield, Pace said.

"We would have 45-day gaps, which would mean that part of a territory would basically be vacated to the enemy and ... you would have to fight your way back in," Pace said.

The legislation would allow Bush to waive those standards, but such a move could prove politically embarrassing to the White House, which has been lambasted by the Democratic leadership and some Republicans for stretching the military too thin.

Pace said the requirements could have "enormous impact" on the troops' efforts to stamp out the violence in Iraq.

Does anyone know what happens when our troops have to "fight their way back in"? The mission doesn't 'go away'. They bleed. And die. Democrats are making political hay on the bodies of our men and women in uniform. But this wasn't newsworthy. Neither was this little item, according to the major wire services:

In a remote city of roughly 30,000 on the Euphrates River, about 150 miles northwest of Baghdad, where American Marines are ramping up their assault on al Qaeda and other terrorist networks operating in al Anbar Province, a suicide bombing that wounded several Iraqi police officers but claimed no American casualties went largely unnoticed in the past week's run of news from the war front.

But this is what one Marine saw one day last week in Rawah, from an account relayed by satellite telephone to his father, a friend of ours, back home: The bomber detonated "about 60 pounds of explosives near a popular gathering spot for IP's [Iraqi Police], wounded several IP -- no Marines were injured.''

The Marine and Iraqi police "reassembled'' the body parts of the bomber to identify him: A "20-something Sunni… not local,'' from the ''Syrian border area."

This is nothing new there. "All insurgents want chaos – so all law enforcement targeted,'' reports the Marine, who speaks at the same time about his campaign of "winning the hearts and minds'' of Iraqis in the region. "I take care of my IP's and their families… shoes, food, and 'Beanie Babies' for their kids…

"Last week, I spent $80 out of pocket to bring rice, flour, and Chai to more Bedouins west of Rawah,'' he reports. "(An) elderly grandmother said, 'God sent you. You are like my son.'''

"Lots of rebuilding'' is taking place, with "contracts for rebuilding Rawah decided by local 'Tony Soprano' type,'' notes the Marine, comparing the place to "China in the 1920s… war lords versus warlords.'' There are 16 rebuilding projects underway in Rawah, he says – ''Contracts awarded along 'tribal' lines – unfortunately $10,000 jobs become $90,000 completions.''

"All suicide bombers are outsiders,'' the Marine reports. "Rawah people want to improve their lives.''

The 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion from Camp LeJeune, N.C., has lost three Marines, with 20 wounded and 85 surviving the attacks of improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, 81 mm rocket grenades and small arms fire. They have "killed and imprisoned large number of insurgents.''

"Each morning,'' the Marine tells his dad, "I ask God, 'What have you planned for me today Lord?'''

But according to the New York Times, the United States military is not the solution. They are the problem. And you should be afraid. Very afraid.

Because that outstretched hand is never outstretched in friendship, at least for most of the lamestream media:

Although Marines from the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion had posted security up and down the street in the city of roughly 30,000 people, ready for any situation, Maj. Sean Quinlan's hands weren't anywhere near his own weapon.

Instead, his hands were gripping those of the elderly men around him in friendly greeting. Mostly former school teachers, the Iraqi's told Quinlan, the commanding officer for the Company D "Outlaws," about exactly what he could do for them to make their city better.

During the patrol, it meant helping out a 3-year-old girl, daughter to one of the Iraqi elders.

Months back, in her innocent curiosity, she pulled a pot of boiling liquid from the stove. Marines remember ushering the family's vehicle quickly through checkpoints to get the child to a hospital to treat her severe burns. Petty Officer 3rd Class Derek Parker, a 25-year-old Navy corpsman from Morris, Okla., joined Quinlan and the rest of the group to see how he could help with the girl's constant pain.

At the time, Parker didn't have any ointment or medication that could help the girl, so Quinlan made a promise to the men. Several hours later, that promise was fulfilled when the Outlaws returned with supplies.

"Her father put his hand over his heart, looked me in the eye and shook my hand," said Parker, who has children of his own. "The family was very happy with us, they really seemed to like that we cared so much about them."

The majority of the people in Rawah don't want to hurt Marines, said Quinlan. In fact, it seems as though the vast majority of the population are good people who want to live a calm, normal life, he said.

"It's all about random acts of kindness," Quinlan reiterated to his Marines after the patrol. "It's not all about fighting the insurgents; we need to show the people that we care."

War has many faces. It can be cruel, cruel beyond reckoning. It can destroy the soul and shatter the mind. But it can uplift the spirit and challenge a man to find things within himself he never knew were there: honor, compassion, kindness, the strength to go on past all human endurance. To overcome hate and weariness and the awful numbness that comes with seeing more horror than any of us, safe in our suburban homes, will ever know. Why don't we see more of this side of the war from the mainstream media?

Perhaps its time to speak a little truth to the powerless: the American people. Operation Iraqi Freedom is in its last moments, and if we mean to really support our troops we need an offensive on the home front.

We need to demand a counteroffensive. Operation Iraqi Truth.

The whole truth. It's not too much to ask. Because a democracy can only stand if its people make informed decisions. And we've been operating in a shadow world of half-truths and delusions for far too long. We've seen a constant parade of darkness and death since 2003. It's time to let a little sunshine in.

Come on. What are you so afraid of?

Posted by Cassandra at 08:37 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

March 07, 2007

An Odd Notion Of Justice

Well, the verdict is in and the party that didn't think perjury was a serious offense is nearly beside itself with joy at the result:

Mr. Libby was found guilty on four of five counts against him: obstruction of justice for "knowingly and corruptly" trying to impede a grand jury investigation of how he acquired and disclosed information to reporters about the identity of a CIA operative; making false statements along those lines to the FBI; perjuring himself by lying under oath before the grand jury about one conversation with a reporter; and a second perjury count related to conversations with other reporters. He was acquitted on the charge of making a false statement to the FBI about his talks with one of those reporters. The facts of the case are well known, among them that Mr. Libby was prosecuted for lying about his use of the undercover operative's identity, not for the federal crime of leaking the name -- a leak first made by others and a crime that apparently didn't take place.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, plucked from his job in Chicago in late 2003 to avoid perceived conflicts of interest at the Justice Department, reiterated yesterday that "any lie under oath" is a serious threat to the judicial system, and "having someone, a high-level official do that under oath in a national security investigation is something that can never be acceptable."

Ah. At last the mystery of why Scooter Libby was alone in the dock is solved. Apparently, according to Patrick Fitzgerald, though "any lie under oath is a serious threat to the judicial system", lies by media figures are to be swept under the rug via Justice Department deal making.

It's just as well to get that out into the open.

It has long been apparent we live in a two-tiered justice system where media figures exempt themselves from the same laws ordinary citizens are bound by, often with the tacit aid of judges and government officials. One doesn't, however, expect to hear it stated quite so baldly. In a trial that hinged on the critical question of whether Libby lied or simply had trouble remembering details of events which happened long ago, he was hardly alone in demonstrating either reluctance to "play ball" with the investigation or to give straightforward answers to questions asked of him:

The searing spotlight on how reporters do their jobs was less than flattering. Miller said she lost one of her notebooks and couldn't remember the names of the other sources she said had told her about Plame. Former Time correspondent Matt Cooper, who wrote a piece questioning whether the administration had "declared war" on Wilson, had trouble deciphering his own notes. Bob Woodward, the Washington Post editor and author, apologized to his boss for failing to disclose for more than two years that former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage had told him about Plame.

Russert was pressed on why he was willing to tell an FBI agent about his conversation with Libby but balked at a prosecutor's subpoena. And syndicated columnist Robert Novak, the man who outed Plame, refused to say for three years whether he had even testified in the case, before it emerged that he had talked to Fitzgerald.

"We all saw how sloppy reporters can be in their note-taking," says Jeralyn Merritt, an attorney and blogger who covered the trial for her Web site TalkLeft. "When you hear them say, 'I don't recall, I don't recall' when asked about their notes for an article, you wonder about their accuracy."

There was considerable sympathy for Miller when she went to jail for 85 days. But when Miller, like other journalists in the case, later testified under a waiver of confidentiality granted by Libby, many analysts wondered just what the First Amendment battle had been about.

But neither the jury nor the American public is likely to learn the answer to that question. After arguing that Miller's testimony was "critical" to his case, Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald suddenly made a deal with Miller, allowing her to avoid testifying about her other source and go free after openly defying his authority. Apparently Ms. Miller's continuing refusal to cooperate with the investigation was not a serious threat to the judicial system.

Neither, apparently, is Richard Armitage's two-year refusal to come forward with what he knew to be punished. He, of course, is a senior government official. But no matter. As Clarice Feldman, a Washington DC attorney, notes; the jury could only work with the facts presented to it. And those facts were carefully selected:

...at whose door do I stand to shout my curses?

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his Deputy Dick Armitage, who knew Armitage leaked and hid from the President and public that fact, letting Libby and the entire White House staff be put through the wringer?

The FBI which poorly investigated the matter, jiggered the notes of the interrogations and somehow lost the key inculpatory notes?

Fitzgerald, who set it upon himself to find any process violation he could find, and who tricked an unsuspecting Libby, who knew he'd not leaked Plame's name to anyone into repeated FBI and grand jury interrogations in the hope of finding any memory inconsistency, no matter how immaterial or insignificant on which to hang his hat?

Shall I curse the right side of the aisle which never likes to get its skirts dusty in the forum, even if their enemies are armed to the teeth and eviscerating their allies right before their noses? You know who I mean.

Charge a Clintonite with wrongdoing and the entire Department of Justice sits on the news until his friends have worked out an appropriate spin and a time to leak it when it will do him the least harm. Consider the merest possibility that someone in the Administration might have done something wrong and Andrea Mitchell has the news of the investigation on the air in an hour and his allies flee in fright that they might get their garments dirty by speaking in his defense.

Shall I blame the judge who let the prosecution get away with introducing into evidence prejudicial news accounts of limited relevance or probative value while denying the defense an opportunity to fully make its case? Who allowed the prosecutor to make scandalous charges in his rebuttal -- the last thing the jury would hear -- with no evidence on the record for them?

Shall I blame the jury which seems to have been unable to find the pony so it reconstructed it out of flip charts and post it notes?

This entire process has been an outrage from beginning to end.

The burden of proof in a criminal matter is "beyond a reasonable doubt". Given the sheer weight of conflicting testimony in this case, there seems to be considerable doubt about whether anyone recalls the events of that long-ago summer with any accuracy. Several things do seem crystal clear: a special prosecutor charged with investigating a violation of the IIPA never bothered to establish that Valerie Plame was, in fact, a covert agent for the purposes of the statute.

It became apparent very late in the investigation he knew all along that Valerie Plame's identity was an open secret among the journalistic community, and furthermore that Scooter Libby was not the person who leaked her identity.

This was a non-investigation of a non-crime. And now a man is going to jail for inconsistent testimony about a matter, about which it appears several others have also given inconsistent testimony. He may have lied. He may have obstructed justice. Or he may not have. But if he did so, two other things are also crystal clear:

1. Several other witnesses refused to cooperate fully with this investigation, citing a 'journalistic privilege' which no court in this land upholds. Richard Armitage and Bob Woodward did not come forward at all for two years.

2. Inconsistencies in the testimony of other witnesses have not resulted in perjury charges. Why are their 'memory lapses' excused?

The answer is a troubling one, but it was hinted at by several jurors interviewed by the media. They felt the need for an administration scalp even if, as one troubled juror admitted, they felt Libby was "the wrong man".

The truth is that Scooter Libby was not convicted yesterday.

He was tried and convicted months ago on the front pages of America's newspapers. But this should not surprise us, coming from a community which cannot tell the difference between a bogus war hero who spent four months in Vietnam before returning to smear his comrades with the foulest of lies and the genuine article. These are the same folks who made "Swift Boating" synonymous with smear tactics.

And so it should be, but not for the reason they think.

But who needs truth when you have Truthiness? Who needs America's most highly decorated living veteran when you have a telegenic "war hero" with three (count 'em - three!) Purple Hearts?

It is always safe to smear the real thing if you have control of the megaphone. And that is what the press count on: that you won't check up on them. That they can drown out the facts with cries of "Swift boating":

What was your first exposure to Kerry's 1971 testimony?

DAY: At the time I was a POW, but I didn't connect it up with him, because there were a lot of loonies out there protesting the war. I had just heard that a Naval officer was badmouthing our performance and basically saying we ought to get out of Vietnam and the war was wrong and so forth. I wasn't aware that it was him until well after I was back from Vietnam.

Did it surprise you to hear of an officer's giving such testimony?

DAY: It astonished me, because basically it was a breach of faith with those people he had served with. It was absolutely untrue that we were committing atrocities there. It was absolutely untrue that we were raping women and murdering children and doing all those kinds of things. And either he knew that was untrue, or he should have known just from his own experiences . . . Later, I found out that he had made these two visits to meet with Le Duc Tho in Paris, and push the enemy's seven-point piece plan--which amounted to us tendering some kind of ransom for the POWs, and under that condition we would come home, and then we would apologize for ever having been in the war. It told me that he really was a man of Benedict Arnold qualities, because that's what Benedict Arnold did. He fought for the country and then crossed over to the British…

Did it undermine your morale to hear that a fellow officer of the U.S. military was essentially parroting what your captors were telling you and torturing you to get you to say?

DAY: Yes. And I have to be straightforward. I did not know who this Naval officer was, and I didn't know exactly what it was he was supposed to be saying. I just heard this story that a Naval officer was basically saying the same stuff that Jane Fonda was saying. Now, of course, in 1972, she was over there posing on gun sights, as were several other anti-war people who wanted the Communists to win. And so to be frank with you, in my mind in jail at that time, I just suspected that it was some sort of hanger-on with Jane Fonda. I just assumed that it was some Naval officer that had kind of gone around the bend, and I certainly never connected it up with him specifically. I had no clue who John Kerry was. I was skeptical of that story, and I thought it might just be some more propaganda from the Vietnamese

Had John Kerry's plan to unilaterally withdraw from Vietnam been put into effect, would your life, as a POW, have been in greater or less danger, and would there have been a greater or a lesser chance of your going home?

DAY: It would have been in far greater danger. They always called me a war criminal, they threatened several times to shoot me after the war. Frankly, I didn't go to sleep every night sick with worry because in my gut I knew that our government was going to bomb them out, and we were going to get out under different conditions. But had the surrender occurred, it would have been a totally different thing, because then those people would have been totally able to do anything they wanted to do with us. They could have turned us loose, they could have not turned us loose, they could have shot us, they could have put us on trial. They could have done anything they wanted to. And not only that, but there would have been a blood bath of the South Vietnamese that would have been in the hundreds of thousands, that would have died and been tortured. . . .

On "Meet the Press," Tim Russert brought up Kerry's 1971 testimony. Kerry said that some of the language he used might have been inappropriate, spoken as an angry young man. Does that cut it for you as an apology?

DAY: It wasn't even in the ballpark. It was no apology--it wasn't even an explanation. He dodged the question, is what happened. . . . He blackened every Vietnam veteran's name when he came back and told all of those terrible stories about what we were supposedly doing. And he is just one of the reasons that the myth exists about all of the crazy, nutty, dope-addicted, booze-addicted failures that came out of Vietnam because of that awful war. Col. Bui Tin of the North Vietnamese government said words to this effect: that every day, the North Vietnamese listened to the radio to see what was happening back here in the United States. And what they heard from Kerry was exactly the kind of propaganda that they wanted to hear, because their claim was they were going to win this war on the streets of San Francisco and New York City. And it was clear that John Kerry was helping them do that. That was also part of the Soviet Union's disinformation program, which was saying exactly the same thing that John Kerry was saying… He basically functioned as a propaganda minister for both the Russians and the North Vietnamese. He basically was advocating that the Communists win.

But don't listen to Bud Day. According to Rosa Brooks, he's part of the 'unprincipled lunatic fringe'. Just like Scooter Libby, who according to the evidence didn't actually leak Val Plame's name to Bob Novak (it appears to have been the deeply anti-Bush Dick Armitage). Now, Libby is "paying" for the crimes of the White House. If your head is exploding, you've got plenty of company.

But hey -- justice has been served. Spin, spin, spin.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:18 AM | Comments (87) | TrackBack

March 04, 2007

Hope Breaks Out In Iraq, Part II

Yesterday, the editorial staff rudely pointed out that hope (like that annoying bluebird of happiness which flies right up your nose when you least expect it) seems to be breaking out in Iraq. Today we continue to rain on John Murtha's 'redeployment' parade. Three separate sources in this morning's reading seemed to reinforce the same message. There are early indications that even before all the "surge" troops are in place, the new tactics are taking effect. This is seen in three ways: violence is down, intelligence tips and recruiting for the IA/IP are up, and most importantly - and this is crucial - when terrorist attacks do occur, they are no longer quite so successful in inciting sectarian reprisals. It is quite possible that just as a string of small setbacks can easily demoralize and bog down an army, so a series of small victories establish a momentum that compounds like interest in the bank, acting as a force multiplier. Ralph Peters reports:

Of the five additional U.S. brigades headed for Baghdad, only one is in place, with the second starting to arrive. Yet the city is already quieter and safer. The terrorists continue to detonate their bombs - with suicidal fanatics targeting the innocent - but sectarian killings (death-squad hits) have dropped from over 50 each night down to single digits.

* The tactic of stationing U.S. units and their Iraqi counterparts down in the Baghdad 'hoods is already paying off. (It should have been used from the outset - instead of hunkering down on massive bases. But better late than never.) The effort has triggered a flood of intelligence tips: When citizens feel safe, they cooperate. And when they help us, our success compounds.

* We hear the bad news from the rest of Iraq, such as this week's monstrous car bombing of children at play on a soccer field in Ramadi, but we don't hear that such attacks by al Qaeda operatives have infuriated mainstream Sunni sheiks and their tribes - who increasingly make common cause with us and their government. And winning over the Sunni "middle" is crucial to Iraq's future.

* We'll never stop all suicide bombers and car bombers, but our security crackdown has already taken out two major Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) factories. And we took down a huge arms cache late last week.

Via McQ, Bing West's Iraq report gives a broader picture:

In Anbar about 60% of the tribes are tilting toward the Marines and fighting the al-Qaeda types. Police ranks are swelling with tribal members. Anbar is improving, but how the Sunni tribes will work with the Iraqi Army, let alone the central government, is moot.

Prognosis for the next six months: Progress but no breakthroughs. The central government has to woo the sheiks and offer terms, figure out how police chiefs and Iraqi army commanders share power in the cities, and crack down on the insurgents captured in Anbar (put them away for life). Jails in Anbar are filling up, and the central government is not stepping up.

In Baghdad, as the Shiite ethnic cleansing advances, the front lines are easily marked by the blocks of abandoned houses. Checking the cleansing can be done by military means – barriers, patrols and the like. The Americans are likely to stop this and turn around the trend.

West nails what he calls the Achilles heel of the coalition plan:

Also in Baghdad, the Sunni extremists strike with suicidal murderers and car bombs. It is unlikely, given a million cars, that a technique will be developed to curtail this inside six months. In most countries, bombers are stopped by effective policing and spy networks, and Iraq is years away from that. This is the Achilles Heel. No matter the progress on other fronts, the persistence of gore and Shiite mass deaths is likely to continue to fuel hatred.

What, then, is the biggest problem? How the Americans can infuse into the Iraqi army and police in Baghdad a sense of mission and even-handedness such that the Americans can withdraw from neighborhoods in eight to twelve months without backsliding.

Existing American military tactics and techniques are adequate to staunch the ethnic cleansing; to transfer those conops or to design substitute techniques that the Iraqi army and police can use – and to meld the army and police into a unity of effort – is a far more problematic task. On the other hand, I’ve seen enough examples of tough Iraqi leadership at the battalion and police chief level to believe that some leadership is emerging. Right now, though, the glue is the presence of the American troops. They have to be out on the streets first, then the Iraqi forces fall in behind them.

The places in Baghdad where I saw clean streets, open shops, and guards on every corner were the Shiite areas. It’s too early to tell whether we’re dealing with a rope-a-dope feint by the Shiite politicians. It is in their short-term interests for them to help us purge bad elements, and restore order and services. But whether they believe a compromise with the Sunnis is possible or necessary – who knows?

All in all, an assessment I can live with. West also has an excellent analysis of how police tactics should be brought to bear in Iraq as we transition from American to Iraqi control. Since my son is a police officer I found this particularly interesting, and I think it's spot on since I believe where the wheels are likely to fall off during the transition is the deplorable state of the Iraqi justice system. McQ comments:

Improving metrics for a police war. In essence, Iraq is now a police war. Yet our briefings, our metrics and our frame of reference – how we organize, analyze and solve problems – are military. Our basic tool to combat this insurgency and sectarian war is the patrol, too often mounted. In contrast, a police station – the equivalent of our Combat Outpost – is divided into patrolmen and detectives (of which we are woefully short because we have not thought in those terms.)

It would be interesting to invite a few senior cops from the States to visit, say, Ramadi and three districts in Baghdad. Then ask them to present how they would organize their daily brief – what metrics they would demand from their police subordinates and what conops they would put in place.

He has a point. Somewhere along the line this must transition into a police action vs. a military action. How and when does that transition take place and what are the metrics and frame of reference for that kind of action? I like his final paragraph. It's a good idea and would help in the development of those metrics and that frame of reference, allowing the transition to be planned and executed efficiently.

I agree, largely because of West's final comment:

Trust will decide this war. We know the essence of the problem: Whether the Iraqi central government and security forces are led by deceivers who tell us they believe in a stable federation with power-sharing, while they abet sectarian division. In my most recent visit, there was the pervasive, open acknowledgement by the police, IA and the residents that they trusted the Americans, but not each other.

For democracy and the rule of law to survive, there must be trust, not just in the fairness of the laws, but that that will be enforced fairly. Right now that is the missing piece in Iraq, and good policing is the first step to establishing that trust.

As to the political commitment, it's anyone's guess, but even here the early indications are heartening. Haider Ajina translates a news article from Iraq’s ‘Alsabah Aljadeed or New Sabah’ of Feb 26 2007:

Al-Maliki said, ‘Baghdad security plan will spread to other provinces as soon as it is successful in calming Baghdad. I am very optimistic about this plan, because of the support and cooperation between civilians and the security forces. There will be no peace for all the outlaws and all must know there will not be a country or security unless Laws rule. The government alone has the responsibility for the security of its citizen’s and national security’. He added, ‘the country will pursue all outlaws regardless of their affiliation. There will be no leniency for any outlaw and all security procedures will be implemented with out hesitation and completely devoid of political influence.

The PM pointed out the positive outcomes of the operation over the last few days. Dismantling a number of terrorist cells, the foiling of many plots to kill civilians and the return of hundreds of families to their original homes. The country will provide returning families with security as well as financial rewards for damages. I promise that security officers will stay until security is achieved.

His father tells of the changes he has seen already:

I spoke to my father in Baghdad, he said that the street is very impressed by the operation and receiving much cooperation from the people. They have done in four days what we thought would take them over a month. Shiites love the Americans and want them stay to help the Iraqi security stand on its feet he said. He also told me the street knows that Iran is no great friend of Iraq. Reading the PM, Al-Maliki, order the soldiers to respect the rights of the individual is still amazing to me. What large difference from just four short years ago. I am not worried about my family from the security forces; I am only worried about them from the terrorist. Before we liberated Iraq the security force were who worried me. This is the same sentiment my family has in Baghdad and Nejef. They now trust and look to the security forces for help. What a turn around, and all squarely due to our training of these new Iraqis and the Iraqi’s willingness to learn and serve. There have been problems with some of the security personnel and most of those are being and have been addressed, as is evident from the PM’s directive of nondiscrimination and no favoritism. The support of the average citizen in Baghdad for this operation is nothing short of remarkable. Of course, this only comes if the citizens feel safe tipping off the Iraqi security forces. This also shows that the terrorists are loosing much of their support base in Iraq.

Omar, too, is hopeful:

As we noted in earlier reports, we feel safer about moving around in the city now than we did a month before. I have recently been to districts in Baghdad where a month or two ago I wouldn’t have thought of going to. In the last week or two I’ve showed my ID to soldiers and policemen in checkpoints dozens of times. A few months ago this was considered an extremely risky thing to do — especially for someone whose ID shows a name and profession such as mine. “Omar” is a pure Sunni name and everyone here knows that scores of young Baghdadi men were killed by death squads just because they had the name.

...While many Iraqi families are returning to the homes they once were forced to leave, there are also Baghdadis who are reopening their stores, ending the months they spent out of business because of violence and intimidation. Some streets that were virtually deserted a few months ago are slowly showing signs of returning to life.
The reopening stores even include some liquor shops! There are two stores on one street that I used to shop that closed early last year when their owners received death threats from the insurgents and the militias. Yesterday I walked through that street and, to my amazement, I found both stores open and back in business.

Of course the reopening of two liquor stores is no big deal by itself when we are talking about a city where thousands of businesses are still shuttered. I regard this as a further positive sign of a change in Baghdad’s daily life. It means that those shopkeepers are leaving their fear behind, and openly ignoring the threats of militias and insurgents who once ruled the streets and intimidated the people with threats and violence.

The results of Operation “Imposing Law” are not magical. We didn’t expect them to be magical. The commanders didn’t claim they’d be when the Operation began. Still these latest developments are certainly promising. And let’s not forget that what has been achieved so far was achieved while many thousands of the new troops assigned to Baghdad are yet to arrive.

It has been such a long time coming, but somehow I can't help but find it funny that the breaking of the logjam is signalled by - among other things - the appearance of... liquor! My mind flashes back to another Spring, back in 2003, and the liberation of Najaf:

In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today.

What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring?

"Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!"

Around him, the crowd roared its approval.

And so everything old is new again. Democracy. Whisky. Sexy. Well, we gave them the chance to build a democracy: Iraq has a Constitution, and elections, and a parliament, though she still has a long way to go before those institutions gain legitimacy in the eyes of the people. But that is the nature of democracies and the Iraqis are going to have to fight both their own history and each other to make Iraq both a just and a humane country.

It appears the whiskey has shown up.

We're working on the sexy.

After such a long winter, we are ready to feel the warmth of the sun once again on our faces. Would it not be a wondrous blessing to be able to resurrect three more old words and rejoice in the sound of them?

Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Posted by Cassandra at 12:04 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

February 23, 2007

The Heartrending Kaleidoscope of War

How many times has it happened to you? You sit at your computer and suddenly, in your Inbox appears one of those slideshows, set to music. The war, in moving pictures.

Moving, in more ways than one. For more often than not before that moving slideshow is over, you find yourself in tears again. The old familiar stinging sensation starting up behind your eyeballs, and then the hot liquid coursing down your cheeks. And there is really nothing you can do anymore because the response has become automatic now. Three years of war have left you like one of Pavlov's dogs: the mere sight of one of those prize-winning photos is enough to induce a predictable sensation.

And so, more often than not, you close the file hurriedly and open a spreadsheet, or grab your calculator. Because you can't afford to get choked up during working hours. Not again.

I often wonder how the war will seem, in retrospect. Once it is over, should that blessed day ever arrive, how will it come back to us in memory? I often think it will seem much like one of those slideshows; that we won't recall entire episodes, but only snapshots frozen in time. Will our memories be distorted, selective? They can't help but be, I fear. That is partly why I get up and write every morning. In our imperfect way, we are grappling to understand history before it is finished. It is only that some of us want to declare the victor before the final quarter has ended:

"Are you on the road, or in the ditch?'' Back when I covered labor negotiations 30 years ago, that was the question reporters would ask to get a sense of how contract talks were going. The phrase came back to me last weekend as I listened to a series of relentlessly negative presentations at a conference here on America's relations with the Muslim world.

We are in the ditch in the Middle East. As bad as you think it is watching TV, it's worse. It's not just Iraq, but the whole pattern of America's dealings with the Arab world. People aren't just angry at America -- they've been that way to varying degrees since I first came here 27 years ago. What's worse is that they're giving up on us -- on our ability to make good decisions, to solve problems, to play the role of honest broker.

My, my. How on earth could anyone get the impression America lacks the ability to prevail, or the good will to be an 'honest broker'? Could it be articles like this, Mr. Ignatius' offering from last week, optimistically titled: Expect the worst in Iraq:

Somehow, four years on, the debate about Iraq is still animated by wishful thinking. The White House talks as if a surge of 20,000 troops is going to stop a civil war. Democrats argue that when America withdraws its troops, Iraqis will finally take responsibility for their own security. But we all need to face the likelihood that this story isn't going to have a happy ending.

Oddly, the thought that relentlessly broadcasting our inability to win the war doesn't exactly encourage fearful Iraqis trying to decide whether to back militias or support an illogical foreign nation that can't achieve consensus, keep intelligence information secret, or fulfill serious foreign policy commitments never seems to occur to really smart men like David Ignatius. But this is completely understandable. They're too busy telling the world how short-sighted the administration is.

This is a rare talent. Almost as rare as the ability to archly inform world leaders what they should have done, in hindsight, once all the pressure is off and you have the advantage of knowing how everthing played out:

Tim Russert: “John, was it possible for our policy makers to truly understand the way Iraqis would have reacted? The judgments made here were that when we went in we would be greeted as quote, ‘liberators,’ to quote Dick, Vice President’s Cheney's phrase, that they were prepared, in effect, to take governing into their own hands, that they were so upset and had been so downtrodden by Saddam Hussein that they would embrace democracy and rise up, almost immediately.”

John Burns, New York Times: “Well first of all, I think, again, to be fair, the American troops were greeted as liberators. We saw it. It lasted very briefly, it was exhausted quickly by the looting and the astonishment and puzzlement and finally anger of Iraqis that nothing, or very little was done to stop that. I think that to be fair to the United States, when I speak as a citizen of the United Kingdom, I think that the instincts that led to much that went wrong were good American instincts: the desire not to have too heavy of a footprint, the desire to empower Iraqis.

“But, and I think that the policy makers in Washington, and to be on honest with you the journalists also, to speak for myself, completely miscalculated the impact of 30 years of violent, brutal repression on the Iraqi people and their willingness, in President Bush's phrase, ' to stand up' for themselves, to take authority, to take risks. Why did we who, people like Rajiv [fellow guest Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post] and myself who were there under Saddam, why did we not fully understand that? I think it's because we were extremely limited by the Saddam's regime as to where we could go and where we could go and speak to and what we wrote about mostly -- certainly I can speak for myself -- was what was most palpable and accessible to us which was the terror, it was real.

“To that extent, I suppose you'd have to say people like myself enabled what happened, the decisions made here to go into Iraq and I'm not going to apologize for that. I've been to, I think many of the world's nastiest places in a 30 year career as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and Iraq was, by a long way saving only North Korea, the nastiest place I've ever been. It was a truly terrible place and what I think we were transfixed by was the notion that if you could remove this of carapace of terror and you could liberate the Iraqi people, many good things would happen. We just didn't understand, and perhaps didn't work hard enough to understand, what lay beneath this carapace which is a deeply fractured society that had always been held together, since the British constructed it, by drawing geometric lines on the map -- Winston Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia in the 1920s -- a country that had really always been held together by force and varying degrees repression. The King, King Faisal, is remembered, the King who was assassinated in 1958, as a kind of golden era, but even that is really, was not really a parliamentary democracy. It was still basically an autocratic state and I think we needed to understand better the forces that we were going to liberate.

“And my guess is that history will say that the forces that we liberated by invading Iraq were so powerful and so uncontrollable that virtually nothing the United States might have done, except to impose its own repressive state with half a million troops, which might have had to last ten years or more, nothing we could have done would have effectively prevented this disintegration that is now occurring.”

And we all know that would have been much better, don't we? The conventional wisdom of the day, back then, was that the Arab street would rise up in anger against the removal of Saddam and there would be massive casualties.

None of that happened.

Because we did not go in as heavy handed conquerors, the "Arab street" saw that we did not intend to oppress Iraq and impose imperial rule. They saw that we were serious about letting the Iraqis control their own future. The peril we could not avert was that decades of brutality had numbed the Iraqis and made them more passive than we expected. And so one danger was averted and another danger we did not foresee - that a proxy war would arise and malicious third parties would leverage deep divisions both in Iraq and back here in America - took its place.

For back at home, the fighting was no less bitter:

An American Congress has got itself into a war it can’t win. It is stuck. Can’t move forward, can’t move back. And Congress is starting to take casualties. It doesn’t know which way to turn. It’s a quagmire.

The situation is dire, and congressmen everywhere are increasingly beleaguered. They have been unable to come up with any strategy for success, but more seriously, they haven’t been able to agree on a strategy for failure. One of their leading lights, Rep. John Murtha, has already been reduced to an object of derision and the danger is he will drag more of them down with him.

Congress spent four days … four days! … yammering earnestly, and then cast a strong, uncompromising, forceful non-binding resolution with a self-negating caveat. The president of the United States, in reaction to this devastating congressional shock-and-awe campaign, said, “Thank you, that was interesting.”

...recent polls have found support for Bush’s troop surge surging, and while opposition to the war is high, so is opposition to:

(a) surrender,
(b) losing,
(c) defeat and
(d) compelling the troops do do any of the same.

This poses a frightful dilemma for Dem Cong strategists. How to surrender without giving up? How to compel defeat without being seen to cause us to lose?

It is becoming increasingly clear that this war cannot be lost politically. It will have to be lost militarily.

And meanwhile, in the midst of hyperbolic press coverage about a lying ex-ambassador who went to Africa so he could spill the beans about what he didn't find there and a sensational trial, ostensibly about a White House aide involved in exposing the identity of a "covert" CIA operative so deeply buried that half the Washington press corps already knew her name, the LA Times openly brags about "outing" three ACTUAL CIA operatives who are covert.

So much for journalistic ethics. But we're supposed to "trust" the media when they report on the war, despite the fact that Jamil Hussein does not exist. Details.

The battle for Baghdad has begun. Richard S. Lowry reports:

The battle for Baghdad has been enjoined. The Iraqi Army is in the process of moving three additional Brigades into the city for Operation Fard al-Qanun. “These Iraqi forces are deploying throughout the city and working also in the joint security stations, where they're living and patrolling jointly with Iraqi police and with coalition forces.” This battle will have a very small military component, as this will be an operation to bring peace and prosperity to the neighborhoods of this war-torn city. The Iraqi ministry of Finance is already planning to provide vital services to the people and there are even plans to open local bank branches.

Within the last week, the 82nd Airborne’s historic 325th Parachute Infantry Regiment has started “cordon and search” operations on the streets of Baghdad. They have taken up residence at Combat Outpost Callahan, inside the city. They have begun to reach out to local leaders to establish relationships and to learn the community’s needs. They are telling all that will listen that they are there to stay. On one of Thursday’s foot patrols SPC Michael Benusa, one of the regiment’s medics, returned to visit civilians that he had treated on his first patrol. He checked in on a family with a teenage daughter who was suffering from eczema and an elderly man who was trying to recover from a recent stroke.
Beneusa provided topical medicine to the teenage girl and gave the elderly man’s family instructions on how to help him regain some mobility in the limbs affected.

In their first week of Fard al-Qanun, there has been a significant reduction in sectarian incidents and in extrajudicial killings in Baghdad because the Iraqi people have chose restraint rather than retribution. However, while this is in fact very encouraging, we cannot stress strongly enough that it would be premature to declare Fard al-Qanun a success. Success will require a sustained effort and a comprehensive approach that complements progress and security with political, economic, legal and social initiatives. The effects of the operation will not be seen in days or weeks, but over the course of months.

If General Petraeus’s plan runs smoothly, there will be very little for the traditional media to report. I will continue to monitor the “real” news and provide it to this blog.

From inside Baghdad, the news is encouraging, if early:

The sky of Baghdad is a story by itself—the city is being watched from above at several levels; from helicopters flying just above rooftops to various types of surveillance drones -which Baghdadis collectively refer to as “the fly” because of the buzzing sound- that remain in the air for hours, to another type of surveillance aircrafts that fly silently at higher altitudes and I suspect are also unmanned.
Above those flies an assortment of fighter jets, and sometimes heavy bombers.
All in all it’d be true to say that the sky is full of eyes and guns.

Although attacks happen here and there, the general feeling is still closer to hope and appreciation of the plan than pessimism. More families are returning to the homes they were once forced to leave, and we’re talking about some of the most dangerous districts such as Ghazaliya and Haifa Street.
Al-Sabah reports that yesterday alone 327 families returned home and that the scene of vans loaded with furniture of refugees leaving Baghdad is no more. There were times when the average was around 20 a day. The 327 figure brought the total to more than 500 families across Baghdad.

Al-Hurra TV aired a report on the story and interviewed some of the returning Baghdadis, one man said “those who returned earlier and saw the change in the situation called us and encouraged us to return, and I too will encourage the rest to come back”. The report showed those families asking the army to stay and not abandon their neighborhood, and showed the officer in charge giving his number to the locals so that they can contact him directly in case of emergency.

Looking at the relative increase in the number of attacks and their geographic extent one can expect the coming days to bring more escalation, but with the amount of power available for US and Iraqi troops I think the bad guys will not be able to achieve much.

The war has been a pastiche of heartbreak and hope, of tears and embraces. Whom do you believe? David Ignatius at his keyboard, or Mohammed in Baghdad? Jack Murtha, or David Petraeus?

Your choice. Hope, or despair. Prevarification, or Purpose?

Choose.

Posted by Cassandra at 12:33 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

February 15, 2007

Resolved To Win

In his essay earlier today, Richard derides U.S. faithlessness towards our allies:

In our recent history we have abandoned the Kurds, Shiites and Afghanis, not to mention our shameless withdrawal of support of the Mountainyards and our friends and allies in Saigon. Lord help the Somalis that befriended America in the 90s, for we deserted them, too. The World knows that we will turn tail and walk away from what was a noble cause in Iraq because the American people are weak and are so self-centered that we withdraw when the situation gets complicated.

But many opponents of the war rightly wonder why we should continue to expend American lives and treasure to free a people half a world away? Why Iraq and Afghanistan and not Darfur? And some ask, what duty do we owe any nation, that we should shed the blood of our sons and daughters on foreign soil?

There are several answers to that question. None of them are simple.

First of all, we have already made promises, and from our performance of those promises the world will assess the credibility of American diplomacy, the strength of our commitment to our allies and to those ideals we swore to bring to Iraq (democracy and the rule of law). Second, al Qaeda has openly announced their desire to establish a beach head in an Islamic state. This is no secret. And they, also, are there now, whatever the arguments about what has gone before. They have no plans to leave and they show no uncertainty as to their goals, whatever we may decide to do.

But above all else, what is at stake is the world's perception of the strength and viability of American military force; of both our ability to project power on a global scale and to maintain it long enough to achieve our stated objectives. With our ignominious retreats from Vietnam and Somalia, both were badly damaged. A failure to carry out our objectives in Iraq would complete the trifecta of miserable failure, quagmire-like defeatism, and American anomie from which we seem unable to free ourselves.

It is an inescapable fact of life that even the best of laws possess no vital power if they are unenforceable: we are currently seeing proof of that in a small area of Baghdad where, despite the fact that the new government of Iraq has successfully elected a representative government, unjust enforcement of Iraq's laws has created a profoundly uncertain atmosphere for its citizens.

In an increasingly volatile and borderless world filled with weapons of mass destruction, the democratic nations have irrationally chosen to dismantle rather than strengthen their standing armies. This makes it more vital than ever that the United States be seen as both willing and capable of backing up its policy stances both at home and abroad. The alternative, in an atmosphere where radical Islamist societies are outbreeding the West and migrating their aggressively intolerant ideology to our shores, is abandonment of the rule of law to those who respect neither human rights nor freedom.

The recent Danish cartoon controversy was a vivid reminder that, as Wafa Sultan has so eloquently told us, this is not a confrontation the West can hide from. We are engaged in a violent cataclysm between the modern and the barbaric world: one that must be resolved if we hope to bequeathe our beloved freedoms to future generations.

But if we mean to win in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must be resolved upon victory. There can be no more hesitation, no more "debate", no "non-binding" resolutions to slowly starve our troops of much-needed funds, manpower, and equipment as they stand in the line of fire because our so-called leaders, "chicken doves", need them to bravely soldier on just long enough to get the DNC elected in 2008. There is only one honest course of action left for those who oppose this war: openly vote to cut off all funding NOW. Though I think this course horribly misguided, any other course, as McQ observes, needlessly imperils our men and women in uniform; it is playing a game of "chicken" with the lives of our troops and it is wrong.

How long will it be, I wonder, before the true sentiments of many who say they support the troops begin to surface? Was William Arkin's 'obscene amenities' crack a few weeks ago the first harbinger of an emerging backlash against the military? John Kerry has, over the years, said several times he wishes he could abolish the armed forces. Kerry has accused our troops of terrorizing Iraqi women and children, and he is hardly alone in that sentiment. It pervades academia and the legal community, which openly brags of its pro bono work defending Gitmo detainees (everyone, even the most reprehensible person, after all, deserves a quality defense from America's best and brightest legal minds). Just don't look to see any of these high-priced firms representing accused servicemembers caught in the mare's nest of changing Rules of Engagement. After all, they have their principles:

... this was what the future of teaching about justice would include: teaching war criminals who sit glaring at me with hatred for daring to speak the truth of their atrocities and who, if paid to, would disappear, torture and kill me. I wondered that night how long I really have in this so called “free” country to teach my students and to be with my children and grandchildren.

The American military and mercenary soldiers who “sacrificed” their lives did not do so for the teacher’s freedom to teach the truth about the so-called war on terror, or any of US history for that matter. They sacrificed their lives, limbs and sanity for money, some education and the thrills of the violence for which they are socially bred. Sacrificing for the “bling and booty” in Iraq or Afghanistan, Philippines, Grenada, Central America, Mexico, Somalia, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of the other numerous wars and invasions spanning US history as an entity and beginning with their foundational practice of killing the Indians and stealing their land.

How can America hope to win wars with a Congress that openly seeks to undermine our armed forces? How can we win when our major newspapers are so ignorant they openly chide the President of the United States for not disclosing everything we know to our worst enemies:

Before things get any more out of hand, President Bush needs to make his intentions toward Iran clear. And Congress needs to make it clear that this time it will be neither tricked nor bullied into supporting another disastrous war.

How little this administration has learned from its failures is a constant source of amazement. It seems the bigger the failure, the less it learns.

Consider last weekend’s supersecret briefing in Baghdad by a group of American military officials whose names could not be revealed to the voters who are paying for this war with their taxes and their children’s blood. The briefers tried to prove the White House’s case that Iran is shipping deadly weapons, including armor-piercing explosives, to Shiite militias in Iraq.

Unlike Colin Powell’s infamous prewar presentation on Iraq at the United Nations, this briefing had actual weapons to look at. And perhaps in time, the administration will be able to prove conclusively that the weapons came from arms factories in Iran.

But the officials offered no evidence to support their charge that “the highest levels of the Iranian government” had authorized smuggling these weapons into Iraq for use against American forces. Nor could they adequately explain why they had been sitting on this urgent evidence since 2004. The only thing that was not surprising was the refusal of any of the briefers to allow their names to be published.

As TigerHawk notes, only a complete moron shows all his cards to his opponent. That is, unless he intends to lose. On the other hand, this undoubtedly explains the Times' constant practice of publishing our most secret classified documents to all and sundry.

They're just trying to be helpful, you see. The fact that no one elected Bill Keller to represent us does not seem to have occurred to him, or anyone else at the Times. But Herr Keller no doubt graduated from the John Cougar Mellencamp School of International Diplomacy, where ankle-grabbing devotees of the camembert-and-fois gras persuasion can exercise their penchant for flyover historical revisionism while ruminating on the unbearable lightness of being American in a postmodern world where there is really no discernable difference between Islamofascists who cheerfully chop heads off Indonesian schoolgirls for wearing nail varnish and so-called "Christofascists" like Tammi Faye Baker who wears loads of it and [gasp] would like the right to say her own prayers in public places, but doesn't particularly care if you do:

Mellencamp: I think what would have been appropriate is exactly what we’re going to have to do right now.

Rose: What’s that?

Mellencamp: Talk to people.

Rose: Who do we go talk to? Do we call him up and say, “Osama, can we talk about this? We’re not real happy about this. Can we talk about it?”

Mellencamp then said we should talk to “the Muslims” and ask “where are we so far apart here?”

Later in the interview Mellencamp says he doesn’t know how he’d respond to the attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II because he doesn’t really know what happened. He says he’s read books, but he doesn’t know if history is always right.

It is a puzzlement, isn't it? The thing is, if we mean to win this war, we need, not just to be resolved upon victory, but to have a clear focus on what victory means and what it will take to get us there. NZ Bear asks that question here.

It's a question McQ asked a while ago. I found the discussion somewhat distressing then, because I've always thought, despite the persistent meme that the President hasn't communicated the goals, that our goals have always been quite clear. I've been listening, and I've heard the same message articulated over, and over, and over again. This isn't rocket science even if the execution hasn't been simple:

Our goal in Iraq is to leave behind a stable, self-governing society, which will no longer be a threat to the Middle East or to the United States. We’re following an orderly plan to reach this goal. Iraq now has a Governing Council, which has appointed interim government ministers. Once a constitution has been written, Iraq will move toward national elections. We want this process to go as quickly as possible — yet it must be done right. The free institutions of Iraq must stand the test of time. And a democratic Iraq will stand as an example to all the Middle East. We believe — and the Iraqi people will show — that liberty is the hope and the right of every land. Our work in Iraq has been long, it’s hard, and it’s not finished. We will stay the course. We will complete our job. And beyond Iraq, the war on terror continues. There will be no quick victory in this war.

That statement was made a long time ago. The goalposts haven't changed.

The end state doesn't have to be perfect - the Iraqis can't be expected to jumpstart two hundred years of American history in the blink of an eye. They're going to have to endure the same growing pains we did, and likely more. But that doesn't mean democracy can't take hold, or that it shouldn't be attempted. And once we establish a secure foundation they can build on, we won't be able to rest. Our long term regional interests demand both a military and a political presence in the region. As Richard indicates, we are in this for the long haul.

Complaining about the current situation is bootless. We are there.

The only question is, where do we go from here? To pretend, as so many people have done, that we can evade the hard choices that remain is irresponsible.

To continue to lie about where we've been and decisions that were made in the past, as so many in the media have done, is beyond reprehensible. We've been told over and over that we were "deceived" about the intelligence leading up to the war. The Senate Select Intelligence Report found that we were in fact led astray - by the intelligence community:

In the cases in the NTE where the IC did express uncertainty about its assessments concerning Iraq's WMD capabilities, those explanations suggested, in some cases, that Iraq's capabilities were even greater than the NIE judged. For example, the key judgments of the NIE said "we judge that we are seeing only a portion of Iraq's WMD efforts, owing to Baghdad's vigorous denial and deception efforts. Revelations after the Gulf War starkly demonstrate the extensive efforts undertaken by Iraq to deny information.

The Committee found that none of the analysts or other people interviewed by the Committee said that they were pressured to change their conclusions related to Iraq's links to terrorism. After 9/11, however, analysts were under tremendous pressure to make correct assessments, to avoid missing a credible threat, and to avoid an intelligence failure on the scale of 9/11. As a result, the Intelligence Community's assessments were bold and assertive in pointing out potential terrorist links. For instance, the June 2002 Central Intelligence Agency assessment Iraq and al-Qaida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship was, according to its Scope Note, "purposefully aggressive" in drawing connections between Iraq and al-Qaida in an effort to inform policymakers of the potential that such a relationship existed.

And yet it is the assessments of this very intelligence community, (which has repeatedly been WRONG) that Carl Levin, erroneously quoted by the Washington Post alleges is "improper" for anyone in government to question! Intelligence is historically uncertain and famously wrong in hindsight, and yet momentous decisions must still be made in the presence of incomplete and often chancy data. Human judgment must be applied and knowledge sifted. This is not 'manipulation', especially when not one, but three subsequent inquiries conclude no improper pressure took place. We want our leaders to be intelligent consumers of data, not passive sponges; and as the latest brouhaha in the Post clearly shows, the media are the last ones who should be claiming infallibility.

We have come to a final pass where there can be no more vacillation. Either the American people must finally stand behind their armed forces or they must resign themselves to renouncing the right of active self-government. We must take it on ourselves to be informed about what our leaders in Congress are doing, about who stands behind our troops and who does not. And we must demand honest government from our leaders, both those who support and oppose the war. Half-measures do no favors to those in the line of fire. Though I do not wish to see us pull out of Iraq, I would rather see an honest fight - even if we lose that argument - in Congress than the kind of hypocrisy we're seeing now. I believe it is precisely a lack of openness that is causing much of the confusion and lack of support we're seeing in the American people.

The recent uptick in violence in Baghdad is directly related to the dissent and division here at home. Our enemies depend on the fact that we remain unable to pull together as a nation, and some among us seem determined to give them every assurance that we are on their side. Please join The Victory Caucus.

Tell me that I have not wasted the past three years of my life, and that my faith in my country is not misguided.

Posted by Cassandra at 07:19 AM | Comments (55) | TrackBack

January 31, 2007

Cognitive Dissonance On Iraq War

It is a uniquely American tableau. Nowhere else in the world can one imagine the scene being played out in quite this way.

Up on Capitol Hill politicians duck life and death decisions with oily rhetoric designed to cover up the inconvenient truth. But no matter how long the palaver goes on, hard choices must be made and human beings will suffer and die as a result. There is no question about that. Not really.

The only real questions are these: which people will die, can the killing be limited, and in the end who will be stuck with the blame?

But Washington has always been a city of shadows and misdirection and so the pompous posturing continues, aided by a gullible press and a freshman Senator melodramatically thrusting his son's combat boots into the air. The cameras long ago panned away from the Iraqis and the troops who fight, and bleed, and come home in coffins. Now it is all about Senator Webb; his angst and his anger. And so the media rush to cover the dog and pony show, brushing aside the son who left college early to join a war his father trashes at every opportunity.

No matter. Lance Corporal Webb is just one more brainwashed soldier whose opinion the media finds not suitable for your consumption. It's not 'fair and balanced' enough; it doesn't support the metamessage they wish to convey. And anyway, Daddy just keeps talking... and talking... and talking and we wouldn't want to miss a single, precious soundbyte:

TIMES-DISPATCH: The Times-Dispatch has called on you and your colleagues to shake President Bush’s extended hand and help fix our nation’s health insurance and payment system. Will you?

WEBB: A lot people lost their hands in Iraq. Three thousand soldiers, and counting, have lost even more.

TIMES-DISPATCH: Err… um … that’s nice. Well, actually it’s not nice at all, but that’s beside the point. My question wasn’t about hands in general, but about Bush’s in particular. Will you shake it?

WEBB: Just yesterday my boy called me from Iraq. He said some of the locals were shaking in fear. It’s not healthy, and America will have to pay for years to come, all because George W. Bush wasn’t prescient enough in 2003 to figure out what a brilliant guy I was at the time.

TIMES-DISPATCH: That’s not what I asked. What I asked was, will you shake the President’s hand?

WEBB: I think that is between me and my hand.

More and more our national debate on the war has become infected with an eerie sort of cognitive dissonance, the sort of pervasive escapism one expects to find in Hollywood, but not on Capitol Hill. It should not surprise us then to find a popular drama series, Fox television's "24", grappling more honestly with the unforgiving tradeoffs between security and freedom than our elected leaders:

Terrorist threats place American civilians and government officials in a position in which they must choose between conflicting loyalties. It is the show's genius, and the key to its enduring appeal, that its writers almost never lapse into thinking that these choices are simple. This is not to say that there are no right and wrong answers. But right and wrong are often only clear -- especially to the characters, but even to the viewer -- in retrospect.

...But it is not merely a question of choosing between family and a greater good; or -- in other contexts that crop up repeatedly on the show -- between civil liberties and national security; or between torture and human rights. It is a failing of our politics that these kinds of questions, in the real world, are presented by both sides as either easy to answer or unnecessary to choose between -- or both. It is one achievement of "24" that it treats these tradeoffs as both real and difficult. They are questions that depend on the circumstances in which they are asked.

If only Congress faced reality as unflinchingly as Jack Bauer does each week on our TV screens. But there is the wrath of CAIR to consider - that sort of tough talk doesn't play well with the focus groups, and so it is best to step over the crack in the sidewalk, lest it break our backs. Even Muslim-Americans hesitate to speak out, as M. Zuhdi Jasser, a former Navy commander, comments:

To this point, the Muslim community has been able to completely avoid any real debate over Islamism. In fact, we see now a movement in England and the West to blame the West’s foreign policy as a root cause of terror rather than the real root cause — theocratic Islamist ideology.

But in a very real sense, are ordinary Americans any different? For five years now, afraid of igniting deep divisions within our own society, we have oh-so-sensitively avoided any real debate over the war on terror and what must be done if we mean to win it. The real and quite inconvenient truth, revealed in a recent poll, is that the majority of the American people aren't even sure they want us to win. And our fighting men have heard that message loud and clear. They know their efforts are not supported no matter what warm and fuzzy words issue forth from the belly of Congress. One has only to read Senator John Warner's tragically nonsensical resolution to hear one thing loud and clear: the Republican Party has asked our military to accomplish a mission with a plan they admit has not worked in the past for lack of resources.

And, having openly admitted that fact, they now refuse the commander, whose appointment they just overwhelmingly approved, the troops and equipment he just told Congress he needs to do the job.

Convenient translation: "You, sir, have just been relieved of command. Oh, go ahead and keep the fancy title and uniform, feel free to take the blame when the mission fails, but we are dictating to you how to do your job. By the way, this is the same job your predecessor was tasked with, but though we all complained for years there weren't enough boots on the ground, we now think you ought to be able to do the job with insufficient resources. And don't bother trying to tell us what you think you need because we are not interested. That is all.".

And with this solemn pronouncement from Senator Warner, the cognitive dissonance is complete. So many things have been clarified for us. The President may have thought he was the Commander-in-Chief, but now we know better. As McQ (who has himself questioned the wisdom of the surge in the past) notes, there is a time for discussion, and a time when, having voiced your disagreement, you close ranks and get behind the plan. Of course, this metaphor assumes all parties are on the same side, and that they truly want to win.

Those assumptions have now been rather thoroughly refuted, and Congress, though it will not openly assume responsibility for the outcome, has refused to allow either the President or the military to direct military operations.

What the Warner resolution makes crystal clear is that General Petraeus may have thought he was in charge of military operations, but General Abizaid's judgment and that of his junior officers, not the current commanding General's, will be allowed to overrule the word of the commander and decide events on the ground:

Whereas, U.S. Central Command Commander General John Abizaid testified to Congress on November 15, 2006, "I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the Corps Commander, [and] General Dempsey. We all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no.

And so now we know the value of all that talk of "listening to the Generals". It was all a matter of which Generals, wasn't it? We don't want to listen to General Mattis, or General Zilmer:

Additional troops earmarked for that region under President Bush's planned increase will buy the region the time it desperately needs, Zilmer said.

"What these additional Marines provide to us is an ability to reinforce the success that we've seen in the last couple of months," he said. "It allows us to get to some of the areas that we haven't been able to establish the presence we would have liked.

"But at the end of the day, it's still about providing that time, and that's what these 4,000 Marines will give us. They will provide that additional time for us to develop the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police, which at the end of the day, are essential to the long-term security and stability in Anbar province."

Well General Zilmer, you have your answer from General Senator Warner. Put that little piece of Republican Party support in your pipe and smoke it.

Posted by Cassandra at 07:27 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

January 29, 2007

NY TimesWatch: The Times Discovers Bullets!

5 a.m. we step outside to retrieve the daily fishwrap but to our utter surprise, it's dark outside. And cold.

Very cold. This is just another thing for which we can thank the stupid Chimp. Since he refused to ratify Kyoto, the weather seems prone to ever more alarming and unpredictable fluctuations.

Yesterday white stuff was actually falling from the sky. Who knows what it will be like outside our front door six months from now? Probably hotter than Hades.

This would never have happened under a Kedwards administration... But there is no point in grieving over might-have-beens. Sadly, there seems little chance now that the Giant Duck of Peace will spread its wings over our wounded nation, salving the harsh realities of war with the comforting wingbeat of Truthiness:

At the rally, 12-year-old Moriah Arnold stood on her toes to reach the microphone and tell the crowd: “Now we know our leaders either lied to us or hid the truth. Because of our actions, the rest of the world sees us as a bully and a liar.”

And a little child shall lead them. Everybody knows you can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake! Just ask Senator Warner! He and other Republican stalwarts in the Senate are falling all over themselves in their eagerness to help the Democrats support General Petraeus by sending fewer troops than he needs to get the job done! This new, bipartisan spirit of cooperation that has seized Washington is truly inspiring.

Meanwhile, as our elected representatives busily badmouth the Iraqis and undercut support our armed forces, the Iraqis continue to delude themselves that our brave, murdering troops can somehow win their illegal and immoral war of occupation:

The head of one of the two city councils in Sadr city told AFP that he's ready to cooperate with the Iraqi forces in implementing the security plan. In the statement that appeared on al-Mada Kareem Hassan said "The presence of popular armed committees [Sadr militias] will end automatically when Iraqi forces enter the city because the need for the committees will cease to exist"

We talked earlier about insurgents and terrorists fleeing Baghdad to Diyala, and today there's another report about a similar migration, from al-Sabah:

Eyewitnesses in some volatile areas said that large numbers of militants have fled to Syria to avoid being trapped in the incoming security operations.

According to those witnesses, residents and shopkeepers are no longer concerned about militants whose existence in public used to bring on clashes that put the lives of civilians in danger.

A shopkeeper in al-Karkh [western Baghdad] said that many of them [militants] packed their stuff and headed to Syria to wait and see what the operations are going to be like.

While experts consider this a failure in protecting the plan's secrecy which might lead to the loss of the surprise factor, they also say it indicates the seriousness and resolve in this plan that is already scaring away the militants. PM Maliki pointed out that seeing them run away is a good thing but he returned and said the security forces would chase them down everywhere after Baghdad is clear.

As we said in the last update, Maliki won unanimous support for his plan in the parliament and despite some opposition from the radical factions the major blocs are expressing their support and approval of the plan:

Spokesman of the Accord front Saleem Abdullah said after the session that the principles of the security plan have the approval of the front and "constitutes a quality leap toward serving Iraq's people".

Hussein al-Sha'lan of the Iraqi bloc stressed on the importance of cooperation among political powers to ensure the success of the plan which he called "realistic and well-thought".

Abdul Khaliq Zangana of the Kurdish alliance said the plan would deal a heavy blow to Iraq's enemies and put an end to the crimes of outlaws and their backers.

On the other hand citizens we talked to after the prime minister made his speech before the parliament say that there's no place for mistakes or weakness this time but they also seemed confident that Maliki has prepared the right tools for success.

If only they read the New York Times they would realize that even a battle where we kill 250 to 300 insurgents, foil an assassination attempt on Ali al-Sistani, and suffer only minimal casualties in return (great video by CNN anchor Arwa Damon) was rendered utterly meaningless by the tragic death, last Wednesday, of Staff Sgt. Hector Leija:

The joint military effort has been billed as the first step toward an Iraqi takeover of security. But this morning, in the two dark, third-floor apartments on Haifa Street, that promise seemed distant. What was close, and painfully real, was the cost of an escalating street fight that had trapped American soldiers and Iraqi bystanders between warring sects.

And as with so many days here, a bullet changed everything.

Yes folks, there may be a larger war here, but we need to keep things in perspective.

There was a miserable failure here. And we lost another one of our own. What was that body count again?

Is this what he fought for? So that a mostly negative account of his death would be used to counterbalance a battle we won, his life reduced to a headline: "When One Bullet Alters Everything"?

What about everything Staff Sergeant Leija did up to that point?

Didn't that alter anything? Apparently not. For the New York Times it was not the life of Staff Sergeant Leija that mattered but his death.

Not what he stood for, what he loved, what he cared about, what he fought for that they bring to their readers. The Times has discovered the astonishing fact that in war, bullets kill and we are all so much better informed for their in-depth, on the scene investigative report.

The Times: keeping the war in perspective, on Page One.

Posted by Cassandra at 06:44 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

January 23, 2007

Time For A Gut Check, America

What is this nation made of?

What is so hard to understand about radical Islamofacism? We have been warned by friends.

We have been taunted by enemies.

...your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge, but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal.

You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the "heart" of every Muslim and a remedy to the "chests" of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut, Aden and Mogadishu.

September 11th, 2001. World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Flight 93 attacked. Nearly 3000 Americans of all races, religions, and creeds...dead.

And still we refuse to learn.

Reading General Petraeus' strategy for quelling the violence in Baghdad makes two things more plain than ever.

First, we are our own worst enemies. And second, the constant media and Congressional efforts to undercut this war have got to stop. Whether or not, as we are triumphantly informed by the lamestream media, 65% of the American people have given up on our troops they need to face reality. Our military are committed in the short term.

They are in harm's way. Waffling and infighting will not bring them home sooner; they will only place their lives in greater jeopardy, while rendering the sacrifices of those who have died or been grievously wounded meaningless. They deserve better from us.

It's time for another gut check, America. Time to stop the whining and the carping. Time to stop insulting our fighting men and women; diminishing their voluntary sacrifices by calling them children. They are not your "kids". As one reader, a Vietnam veteran, so aptly remarked last night, there are no children on a battlefield and the military does not recruit babies. They can read, write, and think for themselves by the time they sign on that dotted line and when they reenlist, as they do from combat units all over in astonishing numbers, that says something very powerful that all your condescending and cynical rhetoric can't wipe away. It says that they believe in each other and in their mission even if you don't. And our President believes in them, even if you don't. What a sad, sad commentary that is, when the American people have lost confidence in the armed forces who have served them so nobly and so well under such difficult circumstances, under a Congress and a so-called free press who have undercut them at every turn, who have published classified details of vulnerabilities in their body armor so snipers would have a clearer idea of how to defeat it, all in the name of "freedom".

And you, the people of America, stood silent and allowed this.

You, the people of America, the conspicuous consumers, did not object, did not cancel your subscriptions to the New York Times, because that would be inconvenient.

And now you are tired of war. Only 28% of you approve of the President, and you sit passively in your homes, waiting for him to explain the war to you better, to "ask you to sacrifice". Like spoiled babies, you whine pathetically because the President hasn't asked you nicely enoughto participate in this war.

Do you, perhaps, require detailed instructions? An engraved invitiation? What mystical force prevents you from "sacrificing" unless and until the President of the United States asks you to? Do you lack the willpower to turn off the television and stay out of the Mall? To keep away from that recruiter's office? It must be horribly, horribly difficult for you. I pity anyone who feels so powerless that remain a prisoner in their own home, forced into inaction and at the mercy of a President they openly despise; a man with all the formidable intellectual prowess of a mildly retarded chimpanzee who (we are told) somehow managed to rout not one but two vastly smarter opponents in national elections as the Free People of the United States looked on in helpless horror. And that was before he shredded the Constitution and fed it to Barney the White House terrier, completing our national paralysis.

And still you second-guess the voluntary decisions of your "children". In the 1800s we saw the heartbreak of families torn asunder by war, brothers, even fathers and sons on different sides. One need look no farther than the family of Senator Jim Webb to see the conflict that is tearing this nation apart played out again. While the father wears his son's combat boots on the campaign trail and calls for the troops to come home, the son fought fiercely to get onto the field of battle and fight a war his father doesn't believe in:

"For me not to respond to the country's call, I'd be letting myself and the history of my family down," said Webb.

Watching the battle of Al Fallujah on TV from his campus, Webb decided he had seen too much of the war in Iraq from the safety of the United States.

Webb made his decision to leave the University in December of 2004, and began working with Marine Corps recruiters to find his way into the war.

"Watching the coverage of fighting in Fallujah showed me that I needed to be out there," said Webb. "Enlisting in the Marine Corps was the fastest way to Iraq."

Webb officially enlisted in January of 2005, graduating from boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., in May.

Shortly after arriving at the School of Infantry for advanced training, Webb was invited to take an indoctrination to become a reconnaissance Marine.

While attending the advanced schools of reconnaissance, however, Webb became ill and was forced to end his training.

Although the battalion was willing to keep him on board to later finish his training, Webb was faced with a difficult decision. Webb was proud of his chance to become a recon Marine, but his desire to deploy ultimately swayed his decision.

"I was looking for the fastest route to Iraq I could find, and the Recon battalion wasn't scheduled to leave when I would finish training," said Webb.

Webb was separated from the recon battalion and attached with the first deploying infantry unit available.

On January 9, 2006, Webb became a rifleman for 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, which was scheduled to deploy to Ar Ramadi, Iraq later in the year.

Now halfway through his deployment with 1/6, Webb has experienced much of what he watched in college and is content with his decision.

"I was relieved when I got to Ramadi," said Webb. "Now, I've done my part."

Our forces are going in. General Petraeus has made it clear that this time things will be done differently, whether or not the Iraqis respond as we hope:

The general, whose Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for this morning, plans to send all 17,500 additional U.S. troops ordered by President Bush into Baghdad, regardless of whether Iraqi army units join the fight as planned, according to officials familiar with his thinking. Anticipating an uneven performance by the Iraqi army, military planners are advocating using American force and funding quickly to establish early victories, both in improving security and showing economic progress

... "To do what has to be done, they all have to go," said a senior defense official who met last week with Petraeus.

During the first months of the campaign, Petraeus is likely to be wary of declarations of success or calls from Capitol Hill to begin curtailing the troop increase. "Gaining the trust of the populace is going to take more than 30 to 90 days, which means the timeline for obtaining real results are out of sync with what the Hill and the U.S. populace is looking for in the way of results," a strategist for the Joint Staff said.

Petraeus will require his troops to operate and live among the population, hoping to safeguard security and economic gains for neighborhoods cleared of violence. Military experts say that violence could decrease through April and May but that once insurgents get a feel for U.S. and Iraqi army tactics, a new "fighting season" could begin in late spring -- triggering potential political problems for U.S. public support of the operation.

The question is, will fickle partisan politicians be able to put aside their selfish interests for once and pull together for the sake of this nation?

Very doubtful. This would require a faith in both the ideals they profess to believe in and a willingness to put their own hides on the line that they've shown no signs of to date. Jim Webb is entitled to his opinion on the war, but the fact is he is not going to stop the surge. And so the question remains, will he support his son? Or will he try to undercut what the men and women of the United States military are trying to do during time of war?

And there is a larger and far more discouraging question at stake: if men like Jim Webb aren't willing to match the courage and faith of what may well be the next Greatest Generation, one wonders what hope there is for the rest of the nation?

CWCID: Badger 6 (who, by the way, runs an excellent site) for the Webb article, a certain Colorado Cat for the first Wafa Sultan link.

Update: And the HVES thought we were perturbed with Herr Webb... heh.

Posted by Cassandra at 05:16 AM | Comments (29) | TrackBack

January 21, 2007

Glimpses Through The Parting Fog of War

...if there's anyone who believes that these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it...If a young fella has an option of having a decent career or joining the army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life he would not be in Iraq.

- Rep. Charles Rangel

Think you know the face of war? Think again. War speaks with the soul of a poet, not the inarticulate voice of the poor, the stupid, the uneducated:

Here I stand, in modern-day Iraq. I have come further to fight here than any soldier of any nation before me, and I fight with weapons and equipment that lay pale the panoply of earlier armies. I represent the pinnacle of force projection and decisive battle, and yet I fight here, where unnumbered young warriors have fought and died through time stretching out of memory. It was on this land that the Babylonian empire first arose out of those first Sumerian agrarians, only to be conquered by the Assyrians, and still later throw off the foreign chains. It was here that Alexander's phalanxes swept by, trailing Hellenism in their wake. Rome, and later the Byzantines, drew their border with Persia at the Euphrates River. At that river was where the Sassanids made their stand against the spread of Arabian Islam. The Khans of the Mongols laid this land waste, sometimes killing only to build their towers of bones higher.

This region is steeped in history. We walk on it; we breath it in. Eons of history surround us, infiltrate us, and turn to dust beneath our feet. The ashes of countless cultures, civilizations, and rulers dreams lie under the earth. With each breath, I inhale a few molecules of the dying gasp of Cyrus II, the Persian "Constantine of the East". In the howling wind I can almost hear the cries of a countless multitude dying on killing grounds that bridge across the ages. The same wind carries the red dust that might yet hold a few drops of blood from the battle at Carrhae- the first, crushing defeat for Rome's red blooded legions. Under my heel, a speck grinds into dust: the last grain of sand that remains of the Hanging Gardens at Babylon that are now known only in legend. Some of the world's oldest religions tell us that somewhere in this ancient Cradle of life, God himself breathed on this dust, and it became man, the father of us all. Whatever path we take here, we walk on history.

I walk softly, for I tread on the ghosts of years.

War speaks with the voice of grief. But there is so much more. Beneath the pain lie the promise of healing and the fragile flame of hope:

On the personal level, we have suffered some terrible things at the outset of this New Year. The oldest of my cousins, who is almost a couple of decades older than me, met his death by a terrible accident involving American troops. This is a problem that has occurred so often that really requires reconsideration of the way that M.N. forces are deployed. This was particularly painful as this man was one of the most harmless and peaceful of all, a man who has never hurt anybody, a man with a large family and a man who has born the full brunt of the lean years of these last couple of decades. He had to venture out in his old car in one of these dangerous neighborhoods of Baghdad to do some shopping for his family. In his whole life he never drove his car faster than an exasperating crawling speed. He always created a traffic jam behind him. As he became quite old, his sight and hearing became very weak. We don’t know what happened exactly, he must have panicked; he must have misunderstood something. All we know is that he was shot by American troops. I don’t bear any grudge against these guys. They are placed in a terrible situation. They feel threatened and can hardly distinguish a terrorist from an innocent wayfarer. This is a problem that requires solution, but the solution is easier said than done. This is the terror and terrible difficulty of urban warfare. And it is precisely this that the terrorists are counting upon.

Another incident involved a dear old friend of ours, the family dentist, a brave man, who went everyday to work in his dental clinic, ignoring all the dangers and stubbornly going on with his usual daily routine as though there was nothing happening outside. The street where his clinic is situated is a well known location in Baghdad for the private medical community. Some of the best known medical practitioners used to work there, and the place used to be bustling with patients and people, especially in the afternoons and early evening. Nowadays, it has become almost deserted after doctors, dentists and pharmacists became favorite targets for kidnappings, extortion and murder. This man just kept on going. We were always worried about him and wondered about his courage and tried to talk him into more caution; he just smiled and shrugged off our concerns. Well, at last they got him. They broke into his house, took him away together with his three cars parked in the garage. After few days, we heard that they are demanding a big sum, and most likely it is going to be paid, and even then there is no guarantee for his safety as has been the case so often. In such cases the ordinary citizen has no one to turn to. Police protection for ordinary people is something of the past, a historical memory, you might say. Well, here it is; the sad situation that we have to admit and tell the world.

Another recent incident; a young man, a friend of my son, was shot in the head in our up-town neighborhood; for no sin other than being a Sunni. Our neighborhood which used to be so pleasant and peaceful before has become within the red zone, and people are deserting their erstwhile elegant homes.

The cancer is spreading, and the ordinary decent and peaceful people just can’t continue their existence. Baghdad is being taken over by ruthless gangs and blind terror. The accursed Zarqawi plan has worked. It is not difficult to make mischief, and there is nothing for the Sadamo-Ladinists to be proud about. For history’s sake, if we have to consider chronology, the destruction of the holy shrines at Samara marked the start of a new phase, the start of a steeper descent into sectarian strife and civil disintegration. Of-course it is mainly a deliberate plan of the "Sods" (a short name that I coin and will use henceforth for this motley collection of Saddamists, Al-Qaeda types, and other “insurgent groups”. It is the point when the Shiites, especially in Baghdad, started to retaliate, ignoring the advice and admonitions of the moderate religious leaders such as Al-Sistani. And it is usually the innocent and the weak who suffer, of both sides.

This is the horror we don't like to think about, that which haunts the dreams of our protectors, our sheepdogs in the middle of the night. Because it does happen. In war, the innocent are caught in the crossfire, sometimes our own troops are cut down by their own side. No one, least of all those who volunteer to place their lives on the line to free a foreign people, wants this to happen. But war is a deadly business and the press rush to condemn a situation they can't begin to understand. And yet Alaa is strangely gentle, and far more merciful than our own media. Surely he has reason to be angry, to hate, even. Yet oddly he seems to understand the harsh exigencies of war, to forgive what we, sometimes, cannot seem forgive in ourselves.

Why is that? Could it be these Iraqis are made of far sterner stuff than so-called "experts" like Joe Biden and John Kerry give them credit for? It would seem so, for war also speaks with the voice of determination:

There is a common misconception, or least I perceive a common misconception from what I read and what I hear, that Iraqi's are not willing to die for their newly democratic country. That is an unfair charge that should be refuted.

Last year,

in the City of Falluja alone, 101 Iraqi Police (IP's) were killed fighting the insurgency. They were assassinated in front of their homes, they were blown up at check points and recruiting events.

Bill Ardolino has a very good and insightful interview with a Falluja IP. Reading it will give you a better understanding of who these men are and the challenges they face and we face together. I was at a meeting last week where an IP Colonel said, "Iraqi or American we are all on the same team." He was right, we are.

Everyone matters, and everyone matters equally.

Think you know the face of war? Think again. War has an Iraqi face, and that face has been bloodied and battered:

INDC: You mentioned that you hate the insurgents, is that just more now because you've been shot or did you have a different opinion of them before?

Mohammed: "They hit me and they also killed some of my family. Actually they killed my uncle who used to be an Iraqi Army soldier, and they killed him and burned his face. And then they actually started threatening us as well."

INDC: They burned his face?

Mohammed: "Yes. It's a substance called "tizar," it's like, acid. They put it in his face."

INDC: He was alive when they did this?

Mohammed: "Yes, he was alive. They burned him and stabbed him so many times, and also they shot him with bullets. And we found a note on him saying, 'The police and the army and the Americans are all the same.'

But what shines through years of hardship is an utter determination not to give up until Iraq is freed from the grip of the terrorists who are tearing her apart:

INDC: What are your personal plans for the next few years? What do you see yourself doing?

Mohammed: "I think if the situation keeps going the same way, (with vigilantes) killing the insurgents the same way, it (the insurgency) will finish."

"Not to mention the operation that took place yesterday, by the Iraqi Army and the police (Special Missions Group). It actually shook (the insurgents) so much. If we do another 5 or so, I think we'll finish them."

INDC: How many insurgents do you think are operating in Fallujah?

Mohammed: "A little more than 500. Maybe more than that."

"Actually I need to go, because I don't want to stay a long time."

INDC: Ok. One last, quick question: what do you think of Americans, and has that opinion changed over time?

Mohammed: "I think we need the Americans. If they go out right now it's gonna be a disaster. And believe me, even if they get out of Fallujah, Washington itself will be a target."

But back here in Washington, that grim determination is not shared by everyone. Half a world away the corpses are piling up on the battlefield. Here on the homefront, the chattering classes pass the time by counting the coffins of our warriors, who it amuses them to call "children":

Last week a letter in the paper ran off the usual list of oppressions and deletions of basic liberties, including "the coffins we are not allowed to see." It reminded me of a conversation I had in Arizona with a Marine, whose family was also staying at my in-laws' house. (Their daughter played with Gnat, and was one of the Ghosts of Christmas in the play.) He had just returned from accompanying the body of a Marine back to his home town for a memorial. Lance Cpl. Nick Palmer, 19, was killed by a sniper in Fallujah. The vehicle had stopped to defuse an IED, which had been placed to fix the Humvee in place. Flypaper. Lance Cpl. Palmer was manning a gun on the back of the Humvee when he was hit. The shot came from an industrial building a good distance away; whoever killed him had particular skill. It could have been one of those ordinary Iraqis so enraged by the occupation they quit their jobs as an insurance actuary or auto mechanic and went to sniper school, perhaps. Or maybe it was a Ba'athist "Minuteman." Or an imported Iranian merc. You have to admit it's possible.

The networks may not have shown footage of the coffin as it arrived, but it certainly had the opportunity to show the funeral and the ceremony that preceded it. The Marine, who was Lance Cpl. Palmer's commanding officer, described the event: they arrived at night. Both sides of the street were filled with townspeople, gathered to greet the soldier. Every light in every window was on; every pole had a flag.

The church pews had no empty seats. "Amazing Grace" was played and the Purple Heart presented.

Everyone was allowed to see the coffin, and reflect on what it stood for.

The local TV station's website has a video interview with the parents, which manages to work in Vietnam in the first six seconds. If the TV station filmed the homecoming, it doesn't appear to be on the site. I can’t think of any reason why they wouldn't have shown the homecoming, unless they regarded the interview with the grieving parents as the full measure they were required to give.

The Commanding Officer who appears on the phone call is the Marine who told me the story. It's a very short part of the television story, but it was an intensely private moment and we need see no more. You might not get a sense of the CO's emotions from the voice on the other end. Trust me: it's a wound, and it’s deep. He didn't just make a phone call; he left his family at Christmas time to accompany the body and speak at the service – then drove a rental through a storm to get to the airpot to rejoin his family for the few days he had left stateside.

So the next time someone talks about the coffins we’re not allowed to see, consider all that.

Compared to the media's twisted and obscene rhetoric, war itself with all its heartbreak and savagery begins to seem as clean as a stretch of open desert in the noonday sun.

Posted by Cassandra at 11:52 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

January 18, 2007

Terrorist Surveillance Brought Under FISA

Do we all holy rites.
Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum,
The dead with charity enclosed in clay,
And then to Calais, and to England then,
Where ne'er from Phrance arrived more happy men !

Mirabile Dictu!

When the half vast editorial staff clambered forth from betwixt the marital sheets in the early morning hours a strange but intoxicating scent greeted us. We breathed deeply of it; savored the invigorating, slightly acrid tang as it coursed through our body, sending tiny shudders from our curly little head down to our shell-pink toes. Why, it was like a little bitter ray of sunshine! We were intrigued: what could this mysterious, unfamiliar scent be?

Finally it came to us.... this was the smell of Democratic victory in the morning:

The Bush administration, in a surprise reversal, said on Wednesday that it had agreed to give a secret court jurisdiction over the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program and would end its practice of eavesdropping without warrants on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists.

The Justice Department said it had worked out an “innovative” arrangement with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that provided the “necessary speed and agility” to provide court approval to monitor international communications of people inside the United States without jeopardizing national security.

Egad - who would have believed it? Thanks to the People's Congress, the steel-toed Doc Martens of oppression have been lifted from our throats. Now patriotic Americans can finally exercise their Constitutional right to make those Friends and Family calls to Usama without that horrid Mike Hayden listening in. Well actually it turns out he wasn't actually listening in, because there are waaaaay too many phone calls for him to eavesdrop on every single phone conversation. There are only so many hours in a day, you know, even for super-duper shpooks like the folks at the NSA who just *live* to harsh the collective mellows of freedom-loving people like you and the half vast editorial staff.

It's just that in certain situations law enforcement does have a legitimate need to speedy access to phone conversations to save human life, and the FISA warrant process truly was too slow:

I have extensive experience with the consequences of government bungling due to overstrict interpretations of FISA. As chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee from 1981 to 1984, I participated in oversight of FISA in the first years after its passage. When I subsequently became deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, one of my responsibilities was the terrorism portfolio, which included working with FISA.

In 1985, I experienced the pain of terminating a FISA wiretap when to do so defied common sense and thwarted the possibility of gaining information about American hostages. During the TWA 847 hijacking, American serviceman Robert Stethem was murdered and the remaining American male passengers taken hostage. We had a previously placed tap in the U.S. and thought there was a possibility we could learn the hostages' location. But Justice Department career lawyers told me that the FISA statute defined its "primary purpose" as foreign intelligence gathering. Because crimes were taking place, the FBI had to shut down the wire.

FISA's "primary purpose" became the basis for the "wall" in 1995, when the Clinton-Gore Justice Department prohibited those on the intelligence side from even communicating with those doing law enforcement. The Patriot Act corrected this problem and the FISA appeals court upheld the constitutionality of that amendment, characterizing the rigid interpretation as "puzzling." The court cited an FBI agent's testimony that efforts to investigate two of the Sept. 11 hijackers were blocked by senior FBI officials, concerned about the FISA rule requiring separation.

Today, FISA remains ill-equipped to deal with ever-changing terrorist threats. It was never envisioned to be a speedy collector of information to prevent an imminent attack on our soil. And the reasons the president might decide to bypass FISA courts are readily understandable, as it is easy to conjure up scenarios like the TWA hijacking, in which strict adherence to FISA would jeopardize American lives.

The overarching problem is that FISA, written in 1978, is technologically antediluvian. It was drafted by legislators who had no concept of how terrorists could communicate in the 21st century or the technology that would be invented to intercept those communications. The rules regulating the acquisition of foreign intelligence communications were drafted when the targets to be monitored had one telephone number per residence and all the phones were plugged into the wall. Critics like Al Gore and especially critics in Congress, rather than carp, should address the gaps created by a law that governs peacetime communications-monitoring but does not address computers, cell phones or fiber optics in the midst of war.

The NSA undoubtedly has identified many foreign phone numbers associated with al Qaeda. If these numbers are monitored only from outside the U.S., as consistent with FISA requirements, the agency cannot determine with certainty the location of the persons who are calling them, including whether they are in the U.S. New technology enables the president, via NSA, to establish an early-warning system to alert us immediately when any person located in the U.S. places a call to, or receives a call from, one of the al Qaeda numbers. Do Mr. Gore and congressional critics want the NSA to be unable to locate a secret al Qaeda operative in the U.S.?

If we had used this ability before 9/11, as the vice president has noted, we could have detected the presence of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in San Diego, more than a year before they crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

And to correct an oft-cited misconception, there are no five-minute "emergency" taps. FISA still requires extensive time-consuming procedures. To prepare the two- to three-inch thick applications for nonemergency warrants takes months. The so-called emergency procedure cannot be done in a few hours, let alone minutes. The attorney general is not going to approve even an emergency FISA intercept based on a breathless call from NSA.

For example, al Qaeda Agent X, having a phone under FISA foreign surveillance, travels from Pakistan to New York. The FBI checks airline records and determines he is returning to Pakistan in three hours. Background information must be prepared and the document delivered to the attorney general. By that time, Agent X has done his business and is back on the plane to Pakistan, where NSA can resume its warrantless foreign surveillance. Because of the antiquated requirements of FISA, the surveillance of Agent X has to cease only during the critical hours he is on U.S. soil, presumably planning the next attack.

Even if time were not an issue, any emergency FISA application must still establish the required probable cause within 72 hours of placing the tap. So al Qaeda Agent A is captured in Afghanistan and has Agent B's number in his cell phone, which is monitored by NSA overseas. Agent B makes two or three calls every day to Agent C, who flies to New York. That chain of facts, without further evidence, does not establish probable cause for a court to believe that C is an agent of a foreign power with information about terrorism. Yet, post 9/11, do the critics want NSA to cease monitoring Agent C just because he landed on U.S. soil?

Yawn.... boring technical details again. Change the channel. Isn't Keith Olbermann coming on soon to tell us our beloved Constitution has been passed slowly through a Cuisinart before being fed to Barney the White House Terrier? But what really gets our freak on is that a small black dog has finally displaced Bill O'Reilly as the longest-running Worst Person in the World. For all we know, the little bugger offed David Gregory too and buried him in an unmarked grave under the Rose Garden. Well that tears it - no more BarneyCam for us. Nossir.

Damn. At any rate this latest news obviously confirms what we knew all along: Congressional fears of an out-of-control Executive branch were clearly well-founded:

Board members said that they were impressed by the safeguards the government has built into the NSA's monitoring of phone calls and computer transmissions, and that they wished the administration could tell the public more about them to ease distrust.

Former Clinton liberals and privacy experts have been briefed on the program and have pronounced themselves "impressed by the government's concern for our liberties":

"If the American public, especially civil libertarians like myself, could be more informed about how careful the government is to protect our privacy while still protecting us from attacks, we'd be more reassured," said Lanny Davis , a former Clinton White House lawyer who is the board's lone liberal Democrat.

Even more fun than the usual round of progressyve triumphalism will be the roundup of reich-wing reax. Some, predictably, will recoil in horreur at this show of Presidential 'retreat', as though the war on terror were some sort of Article II pissing contest and winning the instant battle were more important than winning the larger war. As someone who stands to lose a husband and a son if things deteriorate, we can't quite see it that way. The President has never billed himself as anything but a pragmatist; this is why we have always supported him. The knock on him all along has been that he supposedly has not had backup plans. Now all of a sudden he is getting rapped for having a fall back in case things went the way things were predicted to go (Congress turning over) well over a year ago?

Sometimes we wonder. We really do. It's all fine and dandy to have lofty principles, but if a program is vital to national security, you secure its survival at all costs, and that means having Plans B, C, and possibly D, E, and F. As John Hinderaker says, and this is our sense, only time will tell (and most likely we will never know) whether the agreements the administration has negotiated with FISA have compromised the integrity of the program:

Gonzales assured the Senators--not that they care, necessarily, but we do--that security will not be compromised because the court authorization "had to ensure that the Intelligence Community would have the speed and agility necessary to protect the Nation from al Qaeda--the very speed and agility that was offered by the Terrorist Surveillance Program." He adds that "These orders are innovative, they are complex, and it took considerable time and work for the Government to develop the approach that was proposed to the Court...."

So what has changed? It's hard to say. These "orders" presumably authorize the NSA to initiate surveillance under emergency circumstances without going through the cumbersome FISA warrant process. Frankly, I haven't had time for extensive research, but it isn't obvious what provision of FISA authorizes such blanket "orders."

In any event, the administration seems to have found a solution that allows the Terrorist Surveillance Program to continue in all but name, while defusing the criticisms of the program--which were, in my opinion, almost entirely unjustified.

That the administration has been working with the judiciary for over a year confirms that the White House was not, as John Rockefellar insists, hell bent on a "go it alone" strategy.

That Congressional Democrats still intend, despite the White House's move to bring the NSA program under court oversight and the statements of several civil liberties groups that protections in the program were "impressive", to continue their investigations demonstrates that their concerns are largely driven by partisan politics rather than any geniune desire to ensure adequate oversight.

In other words in over a year, little has changed. Capitol Hill is still Capitol Hill.

Posted by Cassandra at 05:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 15, 2007

Trading American Lives For Votes?

Via Ace, this William Kristol column nails it:

Say you're an average congressman. How do you react to President Bush's Iraq speech? You suspect, deep down, that he's probably doing more or less what he needs to do. We can't just click our heels and get out of Iraq--the consequences would be disastrous. And the current strategy isn't working. You have said so yourself. Last fall you called for replacing Rumsfeld. You've complained that there weren't enough troops. What's more, you've heard good things about General David Petraeus from colleagues with military expertise. So now Bush has fired Rumsfeld, put Petraeus in command, and sent in more troops. Maybe this new approach deserves a chance to work?

But, hey . . . look at
those polls! And those op-ed pages! You didn't come to Washington to support an unpopular president conducting an unpopular war. And the Bush administration is doing a crummy job of explaining this change in strategy. The path ahead in any case is going to be tough, and the new strategy might fail. Besides which, being for "escalation" sure doesn't sound good. Wasn't that a problem in Vietnam?

So you work on your talking points: You understand the president has a tough set of choices. You've got doubts about the path he's chosen. You've got lots of questions. But perhaps we should give it a chance . . .

But wait--that doesn't sound like leadership. That doesn't look decisive. And, if you're a Democrat--you didn't put in all that effort getting elected just so you could get a lot of grief from your own activists. If you're a Republican from a Democratic-leaning state--you didn't put in all those hours getting elected just so you could alienate the swing voters you need. So why not take the next step? Condemn the president's approach! There. That's a position.

...So the Boneless Wonders will push a nonbinding resolution to, as Joe Biden put it, "demonstrate to the president he's on his own." Sure, the resolution will weaken the president's hand abroad--but that's not their problem. It will lessen the chances of success in Iraq--but that's above their pay grade. It will dispirit friends and embolden enemies--but maybe there won't be much attention paid overseas to some non-binding congressional resolution. It will send the message to the soldiers fighting in Iraq that help is not on the way--that there are no reinforcements. That's unfortunate. But, hey--they volunteered.

Kristol underestimates Democratic duplicity. Help will be on the way... unfortunately, it will be tied up by "friends of the military" until it is too late to do any good:

With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Emanuel plans to use Bush's Iraq speech to pose what amounts to a vote of "no confidence" in Bush's leadership -- framing the new strategy as a congressional motion and voting it up or down. Emanuel is certain that Bush's strategy will be voted down and that a sizable number of Republicans will join the Democrats in rejecting the military escalation. Rather than try to restrict funds for the troops (which he sees as a political blunder that would delight Republicans), Emanuel instead favors a proposal by Rep. John Murtha to set strict standards for readiness -- which would make it hard to finance the troop surge in Iraq without beefing up the military as a whole. The idea is to position the Democrats as friends of the military, even as they denounce Bush's Iraq policy.

And if Murtha gets his way, he will prevent about half the planned surge from deploying:

Given that violence is likely to escalate at least temporarily as the surge starts, that means Murtha is content to hang a reduced force out to dry without the manpower called for in the original plan.

Appearing on the same program, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said he would not limit funds for the troops already in Iraq, but would try to put language in the bill carrying supplemental funds for the war that could prevent the final two U.S. brigades going over in April and May.

As always, he can count on the media to continue their role as willing accomplices, reporting only half the story:

...the problem that I think here is that there are two kinds of stories about Iraq. There's the accountability story which we're all obsessed with covering. And the president's even added some fuel to the fire by admitting he made a mistake, although not delineating what those mistakes are. But then there is the success stories.

We're not writing those. We're not asking those hard questions. We're only talking about accountability. And again, it's the country that's paying.

Bush is leaving in two years, but we are still going to be in Iraq. We need to figure out a way to make this work.

What a shame that no one - no one in the Republican Congressional leadership, no one in the Democratic leadership, no one in the press, is willing to do what our troops are doing every single day: just put their heads down and get on board with whatever it takes to make this work. No one is even asking them to risk their own lives - just the lives of our military men and women.

Everyone - on both sides - admits it will be a disaster if we fail.

No one has a better idea.

Yet no one wants to do what it takes to succeed. Ace puts it pretty strongly:

The Democrats are now actually trading American lives for votes.

I don't know that I can disagree with him. In a war you either go in with everything you have or you fold and come home. Allowing our military to stay over there while undercutting their mission here at home to 'prove a point' strikes me as beyond reprehensible. Either fight the President all out openly and admit what you're doing and why you're doing it or get behind him and help win this war.

Period.

Posted by Cassandra at 07:47 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

January 12, 2007

The Hopeful vs. The Hopeless

After the President's historic speech Wednesday night, the media rushed to demonstrate they would pay any price and bear any burden to assure the defeat of his proposal. Those who expected some attempt at balance or open mindedness were sadly mistaken. CBS's Dick Meyer spent six or seven paragraphs ramming home the point: the President is completely alone. Newsweek's Howard Fineman couldn't quite manage to control his contempt, "George W. Bush spoke with all the confidence of a perp in a police lineup." Sheryl Stolberg seized the opportunity to remind readers the President was sElected, not elected before making a series of misleading statements:

By stepping up the American military presence in Iraq, President Bush is not only inviting an epic clash with the Democrats who run Capitol Hill. He is ignoring the results of the November elections, rejecting the central thrust of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and flouting the advice of some of his own generals, as well as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq."

"In a sense, it is a predictable path for Mr. Bush. This, after all, is the same president who lost the popular vote in 2000, was installed in the White House by a 5-to-4 vote of the Supreme Court and then governed as if he had won by a landslide. And this is the same president who, after winning re-election in 2004, famously told reporters that he had 'earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.'"

Did Mr. Bush 'flout the advice' of the Iraqi Prime Minister? Not according to Mr. Maliki, but you'd never know that to read the Times. In their desperate effort to prevent a successful offensive against the insurgency the Times quotes, as is their wont, a variety of second-hand sources as proof the President is "Promising Troops Where They Aren't Really Wanted":

As President Bush challenges public opinion at home by committing more American troops, he is confronted by a paradox: an Iraqi government that does not really want them.

The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has not publicly opposed the American troop increase, but aides to Mr. Maliki have been saying for weeks that the government is wary of the proposal. They fear that an increased American troop presence, particularly in Baghdad, will be accompanied by a more assertive American role that will conflict with the Shiite government’s haste to cut back on American authority and run the war the way it wants. American troops, Shiite leaders say, should stay out of Shiite neighborhoods and focus on fighting Sunni insurgents.

“The government believes there is no need for extra troops from the American side,” Haidar al-Abadi, a Parliament member and close associate of Mr. Maliki, said Wednesday. “The existing troops can do the job.”

Readers of the Times will please disregard what is already happening in Iraq. Never mind the fact that on January 7th - three days earlier - Mr. Maliki had, in fact, announced a new crackdown and voiced his determination not to let sectarian loyalties interfere with enforcement of the law.

But why should the Times be interested in telling its readers what Mr. Maliki actually had to say? That little bit of news, apparently, is not fit to print:

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who had been dropping hints he might resign because of sheer fatigue, now says he is committed to restoring Baghdad's sobriquet of Dar al-Salaam (The Abode of Peace) by clearing it of al Qaeda and Saddamite terrorists, militias and death squads.

"The plan that President Bush has announced is based on our plan," says Ali al-Dabbagh, al-Maliki's spokesman. "We presented it to him during the summit in Amman last month, and he promised to study it. The result is a joint Iraqi-American plan to defeat the terrorists."

It's interesting that the Times only quotes Iraqis when they are disparaging the war effort. Alaa of the Mesopotamian gives quite a different picture of what is happening in Iraq:

A meeting of the highest significance and importance has just taken place. Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, though much reviled and hated by the SodomoLadinists et al, is undoubtedly the highest Shiite figure ever to meet the American leadership at the highest level. This meeting has very profound meaning and is a very important message to the various factions in Iraq. I refer you to my previous post titled “Flirting with Sayid Ali”. There are basically two camps in Iraq now. Not a Shiite Camp and A Sunni camp, but a camp for the new order including a majority of the Shiites, the Kurds, and many Sunnis (for example the tribes of the Anbar Salvation Council, and many, many other Sunnis), and another camp that is composed of sectarian factions totally opposed to Democracy and pluralism including anarchistic revenge groups and gangs of both sects. The first camp is by far the majority of the people.

The strategic instinct of President Bush is guiding him in the right direction again despite all the confusion and pressures. I have always said that it is necessary not to lose site of the fundamentals of a situation, never to jeopardize the strategic base for the sake of any temporary tactical maneuvers. It is not a question of taking sides in a sectarian struggle. It is question of knowing where one’s real popular base is; of knowing who has real interest in seeing the success of one’s strategic goals and objectives. Nothing encourages the enemy like seeing confusion and disorientation of the Western leadership; and nothing discourages him more than seeing resolve and commitment otherwise. The enemies have be tackled one a time, and opening many fronts at the same time should be avoided, a fairly obvious axiom which is so often forgotten. If a fight is necessary, so be it; one side has to emerge victorious. This will only take place when the backbone of the enemy is broken thoroughly and definitively. History teaches us this. America itself would not be the Great nation that it is today had it not been for the victories of the American Revolution, and the American Civil War. This is the eighty percent strategy, this is right. We shall have more to say later God’s willing.

Amir Taheri relates that unlike the US media, the reaction of Iraqis to the President's plan has been positive:

'A SIGH of relief!"

So one resident of Haifa Street, in the heart of Baghdad's badlands, reacted to the new plan to secure the Iraqi capital with the help of thousands of additional American troops.

"Maybe the Americans aren't running away after all," said the resident, a Sunni Arab, over the phone moments after President Bush unveiled his new plan. "The message seems to be that the United States will remain committed as long as Bush is in the White House."

Some 70 percent of Baghdad's violence is concentrated in five neighborhoods, where both Shiites and Sunnis have been the targets of rival death squads for months. Other Baghdadis say the population of those areas will greet the American troops with sweets and flowers.

The fear that the United States, bedeviled by internecine feuds, might cut and run has been at the root of the violence since Iraq's liberation in 2003.

Jihadists have fought not because they hope to win on the battlefield, but to strengthen the antiwar lobbies in the United States and Britain. Some in the new political elite have become fence sitters because they regard the United States as a fickle power that could suddenly change course. Others have created or expanded militias, in case the United States abandons Iraq before it can defend itself against internal foes and predatory neighbors.

The new Bush plan has raised Iraqi morale to levels not known for a year.

What a difference hope makes.

If only that sense of hope were felt here at home, instead of the paralyzing sense of fear and powerlessness which seems to grip the world's richest and most powerful nation. The Iraqis are a desperate people living in the shadow of horrible violence and brutality, and yet they dare to dream of a better tomorrow.

We live with the blessings of liberty and incredible abundance. And yet we cower in fear and despair and can imagine only defeat and humiliation.

The contrast is a stark one. It is one which ought to make us ashamed.

In his speech Wednesday night, the President called this war the ideological struggle of our time. The phrase deeply offended many in the America's half vast punditocracy as well it should, for it has implications they struggle mightily to avoid. Because they believe in nothing wholeheartedly, they do not wish to admit the existence of others who do believe: deeply, seriously, fanatically even, in an ideology which leaves no room for dissent, for doubt, for freedom of thought or action. Inexplicably, they prefer to close their eyes to the problem despite the repeated promises of these men that they will not stop until they have destroyed us.

Oddly enough, these men are not totally free from fear. A great haunting terror stalks their dreams at night, but it is not the fear of men who have openly sworn to kill them: men who saw the heads off still-living victims, men who fly planes into buildings full of innocent men, women and children or who strap bombs to young women and boys and send them off to kill and die in the name of Allah.

Who are these liberal protectors of our freedoms afraid of? George W. Bush, the worst dictator since Adolph Hitler, and the Christian right:

...the goal of the Christian right is "not simply conversion but also eventual recruitment into a political movement to create a Christian nation," where constitutional freedoms would be replaced by biblical law, as interpreted by evangelical leaders. Kennedy has been clear about this goal: "As the vice regents of God," the Florida-based minister has written, "we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government," as well as "our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors...."

Hedges carefully distinguishes this strand of Protestant Christian evangelicalism, known as "dominionism," from traditional fundamentalism, which "has not tried to transform government ... into an extension of the church." Under Christian dominion, Hedges writes, "Labor unions, civil rights laws and public schools will be abolished.... and all those deemed insufficiently Christian will be denied citizenship." The Christian right could come to power, he suggests, if we had "another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown or huge environmental disaster." At that point, Hedges asserts, evangelical leaders such as Kennedy, Falwell and Robertson could be "calling for the punishment, detention and quarantining of gays and lesbians — as well as abortionists, Muslims and other nonbelievers." Thus, Hedges concludes, the United States today faces an internal threat analogous to that posed by the Nazis in Weimar Germany.

What is the solution to this horrible threat to tolerance and our beloved civil rights?

...Hedges concludes that the Christian right "should no longer be tolerated," because it "would destroy the tolerance that makes an open society possible." What does he think should be done? He endorses the view that "any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law," and therefore we should treat "incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal." Thus he rejects the 1st Amendment protections for freedom of speech and religion, and court rulings that permit prosecution for speech only if there is an imminent threat to particular individuals.

Fear is an interesting phenomenon. It has so many uses, you see.

In the days since 9/11 the Left has accused the Right of fear mongering, most often for simply pointing out that there really are people out there determined upon killing us. In some odd twist of logic however, the Left's constant references to Weimar Germany, Nazis, and jackbooted oppression should under no circumstances be construed as fear mongering any more than descriptions of the Vice President as someone who "always wants to kill" or references to White House counsel as "Freddy Kreuger" be taken as evidence that MSNBC commentary is anything other than sober, thoughtful, and unpartisan.

The President was more right than he knew Wednesday evening. We are engaged in the ideological struggle of our time. But a fundamental part of the larger war between Islamic extremism and democracy is the deepening rift between two diametrically opposed camps here at home: one supposedly gripped by one set of fears and the other by a far different boogeyman. The question is, which is more logical and which will prevail? The ostensibly tolerant side which views conservatism as an irrational mental state (via KJ) which can be "cured" by simply asking people to think logically?

Or the one which preaches that our own government and armed forces are a greater threat than the terrorists, yet derides its opponents for fear mongering and wants to prevent law enforcement from considering (among many others) the one known factor common to terrorist attacks which have already occurred on the grounds that it "might" be abused?

What is more rational and what should be weighed more seriously; the fear of potential abuses by those who have sworn to protect us or known threats from those who have sworn to destroy us?

And how insulting is it to patronize the police, firemen, and military who risk their lives daily to protect us by implying they have been forced to perform duties they willingly volunteered for? They are not children, dupes, or mindless automatons.

The words of our government's critics would carry considerably more weight if those who wail about the dangers posed by John Yoo, Dick Cheney, or George W. Bush actually stepped up to the plate to do something about the imminent dangers they believe are about to end democracy as we know it. But oddly, those who screech of fascism, police states and the death of liberty don't seem to be willing to risk a hair on their own heads to save the freedoms they profess to love. Inexplicably, their efforts are devoted to preventing those Americans who are willing to act on their beliefs from carrying out their voluntary wishes.

Lacking the courage of their own convictions, their shame drives them to prevent others from bringing about their vision of a better tomorrow. The sad thing is that, without men and women willing to fight and even die for their beliefs, these sunshine patriots would lack the freedom to carp and criticize and scream that they are being oppressed and silenced by a government which has, so far, completely ignored their childish tantrums.

Conservatism is neither a disease nor a mental deficiency. If it is driven by any fear it is the quite real recognition that there is evil in the world. But unlike the fear of their opponents, this fear is coupled with a determination to do something about the problem and the belief that with hard work, we can hand a better world to our children than the one we live in today:

...these groups have strikingly different outlooks on their lives and possibilities that go a long way toward explaining the differences in their political attitudes. Feelings about the power of the individual are a major factor in this division. Pro-Government Conservatives are defined, at least in part, by their optimism in this area. About three-quarters (76%) believe that most people can get ahead if they are willing to work hard ­ and two-thirds (66%) strongly express that view. An even higher percentage of Pro-Government Conservatives (81%) say that everyone has it in his or her own power to succeed.

Disadvantaged Democrats have a gloomier outlook. Just 14% think that people can get ahead by working hard; 79% say that hard work is no guarantee of success, and 76% express that view strongly. Only 44% of Disadvantaged Democrats say that everyone has the power to succeed, while slightly more (47%) take the fatalistic view that success in life is determined by forces outside one's own control.

This power - the power of belief in oneself - is the power that made America great. The defining struggle of our time may well be the struggle between the hopeful and the hopeless (and helpless). As always, the hopeful are fewer. But they are stronger and they are determined to succeed whatever the odds. Throughout history, more wars have been decided by sheer willpower than by any other single force.

What a sad, sad comment it would be if the world's largest superpower talked itself into failure, dragged down by the hopeless in its ranks. This has never been the American way, but in the increasingly egalitarian atmosphere of the 20th and 21st Centuries where greatness is viewed with envy and suspicion and equality of outcome is valued more highly than achievement, it is a strong possibility unless we stand firm.

Posted by Cassandra at 05:38 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

January 11, 2007

Why We Need A Line Item Veto

America, behold your handiwork:

Murtha told USA TODAY that he plans to use his subcommittee's control over the Pentagon budget to force a new direction in Iraq.

Specifically, Murtha, a former Marine and Vietnam War veteran from Pennsylvania, said he'll focus on the administration's supplemental spending request for Iraq, which is expected to be as high as $160 billion.

Murtha says he will hold extensive hearings on the budget request. "We're going to make them justify every cent," he said. He also said he may use the funding bill to hamstring the efforts to add more troops to Iraq.

Among the options Murtha said he's considering: barring the redeployment to Iraq of troops who haven't had the recommended one-year respite in the United States and prohibiting those who are in Iraq from having their tours of duty extended.

Murtha said that by inserting language into the administration's request for more money to fund the Iraq war, he can avoid a Bush veto. Murtha said legislation introduced Tuesday by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., that would require congressional approval of Bush's plan could be vetoed with little consequence. If Congress adds conditions to the Iraq funding bill, Bush will have to accept them or cut off money for the troops. "The supplemental is where the money is," Murtha said. "Nothing else means anything. They can veto anything else."

Yes, Hope Is On The Way. Wonder who gets to break the happy news to our troops serving in Iraq:

First, the surge. A popular fiction circulating in the press has the nation's military commanders all but unanimous in their opposition to sending more troops to Iraq--Exhibit's A, B, and C being General John Abizaid, General George Casey, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But the generals themselves are divided, with Lt. General David Petraeus and Lt. General Raymond Odierno on the other side. Further, none of these men are, strictly speaking, serving as ground commanders in Iraq. It is the rare field officer who will say, "I don't want any reinforcements," and, in fact, American brigade commanders in Iraq have been the chief behind-the-scenes authors of the surge.

No doubt these gentlemen will want to send their regards to Rep. Murtha personally.

Posted by Cassandra at 12:15 PM | Comments (31) | TrackBack

January 04, 2007

Food for Thought

Richard S. Lowry, whom you may remember from Marines in the Garden of Eden, emails:

Nice Guys Finish Last

How many armies do you know of throughout history who were not allowed to confine enemy combatants? How many Armies were not allowed to interrogate their prisoners? How many soldiers were not allowed to shoot at the enemy until shot at? How many leaders were under the scrutiny of a critical media and politicians who called them liars?

America, you are painting our young fighting men into a corner. America, you are running headlong toward defeat in our war on terror.

Our enemies our using our conscience and compassion against us. Our enemies our using our own media and political system against us. Our enemies will win this war not through a military victory. They will win, simply because we will give up.

Bringing our troops home from Iraq is exactly what our enemy wants. They want chaos to rein in the cradle of civilization. Bring our troops home from Iraq will solve nothing. Fighting will continue in the Horn of Africa, in Darfur, in The Philippines and in Northern Africa. Our enemy is advancing on many fronts and once their attention is no longer turned inward, they will accelerate the spread of their brand of terror.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:45 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

December 29, 2006

Gen. Mattis on Iraq

Judging from his recent comments, General Mattis clearly isn't clued into the latest leak of classified information from hardened combat insiders like Thomas Ricks. If he were, he wouldn't be spouting nonsense like this:

The situation in al-Anbar, which is the Marine area, it's a cancer on Iraq. ... But al-Anbar does not have the sectarian violence that the rest of the country has. It's the Sunni triangle. In fact, the only area that has any significant Shia in it is an area on the eastern side and we have no sectarian violence. Interestingly enough, it's an area with Sunni and Shia living side by side, and we have no significant violence, I couldn't tell you why.

Fallujah is considered to be so changed for the better that Sunni fleeing out of Baghdad are going to Fallujah now. Who would have thought that two years ago? It sounds almost bizarre.

What we are seeing now is a significant shift in the tribes. They are coming over. How does this manifest itself? How is it more than just my words? The Sunni sheiks are having their young guys join the Iraqi police. The reason is they will go to their local areas after they go to training academies in various countries outside of Iraq and they return, when they come back, they go back to their home areas.

So you've got the tribes shifting over, their kids joining the police. You've got the Iraqi army and the Iraqi security forces today, they are probably running around, about 52 percent of the casualties in our medical treatment facilities are Iraqi security forces. Which says something about the nature of the fight and the nature of the Iraqi troops who are now represented among the casualties. It's one way to indicate whether or not they are really in the fight or not.

So these are significant shifts right now. And the transition teams and the Marines who are over there, fighting in a very lethal area where the efforts have been unrelenting, have basically achieved successes that we would not have anticipated this early in this process.

Success??? What is this man smoking? Doesn't he read the NY Times? Everyone knows the war is "worse by every available measure"! But wait -- there's more of this madness:

if there's one point I would make strongly, it is this, Mark: that violence and progress can and do coexist. You see the blasts, you see the IEDs, you see the cameras on them out there. And that is a legitimate point.

But it is interesting to see in the background people driving by, looking at it the way we look at a car accident. Kids with backpacks on their backs walking by and looking at the blast site, but life is going on.

A third province today was just turned over to Iraqi control. Now that's not going to be happening in al-Anbar anytime soon; I don't want to put lipstick on a pig and say everything is hunky-dory, but that said, the tribes coming over, the transition of authority, the growing capability of Iraqi security forces in terms of police and army, that sort of thing, the conditions we are seeing over there are specifically that we are winning.

Now I realize that when you see the amount of violence going on and the amount of criminal activity going on, it's easy to just throw up your hands and say, 'Gosh, you know, this just isn't working,' or at best, 'We're going sideways, we're not going forward.'

But the fact is, this is hard stuff. A lot of hard work has been done, a lot of hard work remains, and if this is important, then we've got to do it. And the fact is that our troops coming home from overseas sense that they are part of something important and they are making progress.

Oh for Pete's sake. The next thing he's going to tell us is the the troops are happy:

...let me give you the story of one battalion because it kind of encapsulates what we are seeing with our most deployed units and units that frequently take, that always take the most casualties, the infantry battalions. I kind of use them as a canary in the mineshaft for this topic.

Second battalion, 5th Marines invited me up to speak at a birthday ball here, last November 10, in Las Vegas. Young battalion, infantry battalion, these are the young guys who go toe to toe, they go out hunting for the enemy. They don't sit inside Forward Operating Bases, they don't guard things, they're out on the roads.

They are going to Ramadi, the key terrain in Al-Anbar. Fallujah has always gotten a lot of press, and rightfully so, it's the scene of some rather murderous fighting, but al-Anbar's key terrain is the provincial capital of Ramadi. This battalion has been there before.

Their young men have re-enlisted at nearly double the rate that they were expected to. In other words, each unit has a certain number to give the commander an idea of what we need them to re-enlist at, and I think they doubled it, or very close to doubled it.

But more importantly, 170-odd Marines decided to extend their enlistment to return to Ramadi with their battalion. They aren't going to make the Marine Corps a career, they're going to get out and go to school and go on with their lives, but you can't buy that level of commitment, and this is not being done by a bunch of novices.

These are combat veterans who have been to Ramadi before, and know its alleyways and know the enemy in that area. These are not people who are unaware of the danger in a decision such as this.

So what we have is a force where we currently see the lowest rates of misconduct and desertion as long as we've been keeping the statistics. Spousal abuse is declining, going downward, drug abuse continues to hover at very, very low levels. Our re-enlistment rates are at all-time highs, and the quality of what we are bringing in to the re-enlisted force, if these are the Marines that are able to re-enlist, most of them are coming out of the top half of that cohort.

Further, our recruiters, many of them NCOs home from their second tour in Iraq, are going out and working upwards of 80- and 85-hour workweeks. But we have not had to lower our quality standards. The point I want to make here is: They are having to work much harder in order to get parent support for the enlistment, that sort of thing, but for some reason, we are able to maintain this very high quality force without any lowering of standards

Does this guy ever say anything negative? What about all this "we'll stand down as the Iraqis stand up" stuff.

I don't think we're at the point we need to be at. ... I think the cultural training, I mean we are so advanced from what we were doing three years ago, it's night and day, there's no comparison. We are doing much better now, but I will never be satisfied with it, is the bottom line. We will always be improving on it, the anthropological aspects of the preparation of the troops, where we will continue to be a priority, confident that we have prioritized it properly. We are fighting wars amongst the people. It's not industrial wars anymore and so you can never do enough.

It's all improving....

So why isn't all this "good news" getting out?

I was talking to a lieutenant in Haditha, he told me that because they are now all connected nowadays in their FOBs, he could read stories about Haditha. He said, 'I guarantee you there has not been a reporter in Haditha in my last two and a half months here.'

We're seeing, I think, an unwitting passing of the enemy's message, uncritical, unwitting passing of the enemy's message because the enemy has successfully denied the Western media access to the battlefields.

I'm not sure what Lloyds of London is charging now, I think it's over $5,000 a month insurance for a reporter or photographer to go in. But the murder, the kidnapping, the intimidation means that, in many cases, we have media folks who are relying on stringers who are Iraqi.

Now you can have any kind of (complaint) about the American media or Western media you want, but there is at least a nod, an effort toward objectivity. The stringers who are being brought in, who are bringing in these stories, are not bringing that same degree of objectivity.

So on the one hand, our enemy is denying our media access to the battlefield, where anything perhaps that I say as a general is subject to any number of interpretations, challenges, questions, but the enemy's story basically gets there without that because our media is unable to challenge them. It's unwitting, but at the same time, it can promote the enemy's agenda, simply because there is an apparent attempt at objectivity.

Sheesh. Can you believe this garbage? Now who are you going to trust - this yayhoo, or the word of a reliable anonymous source leaking classified material he swore never to divulge to the press on the condition that they conceal his identity, lest he be fired and prosecuted for breaking the law?

Yeah. I thought so. The man obviously doesn't know a thing about war. Now where are those Thomas Ricks and Carl Woodward articles, so I can read 'real Washington insiders' tell me how the White House doesn't listen to the Generals?

Posted by Cassandra at 12:00 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

The Faces Behind The War

Four a.m.

It's cold and dark outside my small home in western Maryland. The slap of the newspaper hitting the driveway briefly jolts me awake as I blearily stare at the monitor. Behind my office chair a small but determined Weiner Beast wreaks havoc on carefully arranged stacks of Christmas wrap and bows with a destructive force that rivals the most fiendish IED as, via OpFor, I read that last week David Ignatius tried to convey a sense of Christmas during wartime:

He begins with a nod to our good friend and oberbloggenfuhrer BlackFive, and mentions several other sites as well as milblogging.com. But he never seems to get what they're talking about. "Misery may love company," he writes, "but in the military, it keeps its mouth shut." Actually, no it doesn't. Throughout history the soldier's only right has been to complain, and he does it in a variety of ways. But he doesn't always complain; sometimes he pokes fun at his predicament. I suppose you have to be there-- or have been there--to understand. He continues:

"This holiday season, America is struggling through a searing national debate about Iraq. The horror of the war feels immediate, even to people who've never been near Baghdad, but less so the humanity of the thousands of American soldiers who are serving there. That's part of the Iraq disconnect: The war dominates our political life, but the men and women in the midst of it often are nearly invisible. We see them in thumbnail photos in group obituaries but not as real, living people."

That last seems something of an understatement. The press rarely show us anything so accurate - or as human - as a thumbnail photo. Our battle dead and wounded are not accorded the human dignity and respect their voluntary sacrifices deserve. Rather, their service is all too often hijacked by those who oppose everything they gave their lives for; just another obscene weapon in the media's constant efforts to prove this is a war we should not have fought.

The first rule of writing is to know your subject. The press fail to tell our story because, by and large, as an institution they have withdrawn from the arena. Where there were over 800 embeds at the beginning of the war, now roughly 1% of that number remain to cover a war the New York Times has called worse by every available measure. For reasons best known to them, the press have elected to cover the largest story of our time at secondhand using, not professional journalists but unnamed, uncredentialed, and untrained sources whose identity and loyalties, according to AP at least, are not open to question.

But behind the often slanted montage of murder, mayhem, miserable failure and simmering discontent served up daily by the media lies a far different picture hinted at by Ignatius' ignorance of what every military person knows: complaining is less a sign of discontent than a normal pastime during both peacetime and war. We do it in the chow line, during PT, while standing in line at the PX, and we laugh insanely when the New York Times serves up the grumblings of yet another Lance Corporal (often as not laughably mislabeled as an "officer") as evidence that the military is dangerously close to mutiny.

But what do we know? Anyone who questions the media's conventional wisdom about the war is accused of having an agenda, as though somehow the hundreds of thousands of military men and women (not to mention their families) who have volunteered to serve on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan know less about what is going on over there than the members of the press who tell us they can't cover the war because conditions make it "too dangerous" to venture out of their hotel rooms.

It's true: there is danger over there. Whenever anyone in or out of the military dares to question press coverage of the war, we are huffily reminded how many journalists have been wounded or lost their lives in this conflict. We understand, because for every member of the media who has died, literally thousands more of us have made the ultimate sacrifice. It's just that we don't consider that risk a good enough reason to prevent us from doing our jobs and to be fair, very likely many reporters wouldn't either. Many would embed in a heartbeat if their management would support them. What does it say about the values of the media establishment that they fought for the right to embed with the military yet refuse to cover the war at firsthand because they refuse to share the risks with their own countrymen? What does it say when citizen journalists and bloggers like Michael Yon and Bill Roggio have paid their own way to cover the biggest event of our time, yet America's biggest newspapers not only decline the honor but sneer at those who take up the gauntlet in their absence?

And what of the faces behind the war? Why are we always shown victims and whiners rather than those who are doing good?

Carrie Constantini, a Marine wife and mother to a young Marine who worked with Operation Santa this year visited Ward 57 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center where some of our most severely wounded troops are recovering from their injuries, but oddly she didn't find a morass of miserable failure and despair. No doubt this is why the Washington Post (my hometown paper) had no interest in this local story - just as they refused to cover Project Valour IT when I called and tried to interest them in it - but the British BBC was all over it:

"It's very surprising ...The spirit is upbeat, the spirit is positive. I spoke with a young soldier:

"I'm so sorry that you have to be in the hospital on Christmas. But he smiled and said, "But I get to have another Christmas!"

"If they can be positive, well we can be positive too."

In addition to her work with Operation Santa, Carrie volunteers with the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund which assists wounded Marines and members of other services injured while supporting Marine units, (and their families) with expenses related to supporting their wounded hero.

Chuck Ziegenfuss, too, was walking the wards during Christmas. Chuck has his own story to tell - his own wounds led to the formation of Project Valour IT, a grassroots effort by milbloggers to provide voice activated software and laptops to severely injured troops during their recovery period, keeping their morale up and allowing them to stay in touch with friends, family, and their buddies still in the line of fire.

Chuck, too, found no lack of spirit in the wounded wards:

I met with Specialist Bruce Dunlap. Bruce is assigned to 1st platoon, A Battery, 1st Battalion 125th Field Artillery [yeah, baby!] Strike out of Combat Support Center Scania.

He was hit by an IED while on a route clearance mission. This particular IED was a “Hezbollah IED,” a type of IED designed to produce an explosively shaped projectile; much like the High-Explosive Anti-Tank rounds on the Abrams Tank. These are particularly nasty, and designed to defeat armored vehicles. They get their name because they first appeared in Israel, attacking the IDF. They are becoming more frequent, despite the fact that the often don’t kill the occupants of the up-armored-HMMWV’s.

Bruce had both arms and legs wrapped from digits to trunk. He was pretty excited about the Valour-IT laptops, and really excited about this post and picture, because as he put it:

“I hope the enemy does read your blog. They’ll see me and it’ll be a great big “Up yours! You missed, you failed, I’m still here!”

Wounded, bedridden, and still trying to take the fight to the enemy.

And then there are the families of war, the mothers and fathers who patiently wait for that phone call, that letter or email that lets them know their son or daughter is still all right. It is their faith that moves mountains, and their love and courage that have carried this nation for over 200 years:

I remember like it was yesterday when our young Marine came marching out on the parade deck of Parris Island sporting a brand new chevron proclaiming him a PFC in the United States Marine Corps! A merit stripe earned in the sand fleas and swamps of South Carolina. God how proud I was. I bet I stood a full two inches taller. His Mom squeezing my hand harder as his Training Battalion passed the stands. The tears of pride I enjoyed wiping from her cheeks. The virality, the strength, a man where a boy should stand. It was all there.

From that day forward our home became a staging area of sorts for the next four years and even now. Young Marines we met on that very same Parade Deck stopping in on their way one place or another knowing they would get a home cooked meal and lodging with others of their kind. After SOI they came in bunches, full of themselves, cocky, with the innate ability to use the F word as a noun, adjective, verb, adverb. All in the same sentence! Vulgar? Not for a minute. These are young men that enlisted in a time their country is at war, knowing full well what they were facing and where they were headed. They are young men "with the bark" on as the saying goes from my generation. Respectful to Mom and Sis to the max, loving them after minutes of meeting them. You could see the protection trait in them even then. The seriousness they held in their minds of what they were doing was embodied in their Moms and Sisters, Girlfriends and Fiancees, Wives and Daughters. A finer lot of young fire eaters you could never imagine!

What a difference three combat tours make. There is the weariness of too many death notices, too many faces who will never, now, drop by for a beer and a few laughs. And yet through the tears there is still hope and an abiding belief in the values that make this country great, in why we fight:

There he is. Stepping off that damn slow bus. You can see the death in his eyes from where you stand. The Stare. The flatness and lack of emotion shines from the depths of what used to be the light. You take in everything at a glance. The skinny form where the beef used to be. The scars already healed. The stiffness of his walk and the sheer power that exudes from him. The unbelievable animal magnetism that screams his manhood. You take that in as you watch his Mom and Sis attack him in a hug. There was a tiny flicker of light forming his his eyes when he first spied them that has now become a full glow that threatens to light up the night. Happiness for the first time in awhile envelops him. You worry that that deadness will return and has it entered his very soul. Thoughts only of a dad. But that light! Ah, you know he will heal, you know he stands true, you know he is loved, and love heals all!

But most of all, you stand there while the women folk fuss over him and notice the numbers missing. You notice the ones that aren't here. You witness the ones that he saw last as he put them in the MEDEVAC broken and bleeding surround him and shout to the rooftops with hilarity. You see the bond of real men and real brotherhood staring at you in the face. You stand there and remember that Pride from Parris Island and it washes over you anew! Then it is your turn and that young Marine walks up to you, shakes your hand looking you dead in the eye, and tells you he is home. There are no words to describe the Pride a dad has for his Son at that time. No words can do it justice. The pain he knows I carry for his Fallen Brothers because he carries it too. Were it I could carry his burdens and he understands. The meeting of a dad and his Son. The same as it's been throughout history. Two men that believe in one another.

Yeah, half the folks in this great nation that these young men and women sacrifice for will never, ever "get it". I will also never, ever stand down in their stead either. My strength is much greater than theirs. Mine was forged in the fires of Hell! Their's given them by men and women they will never understand.

This is the strength of the good earth, of the South: vital, warm, alive. And yet far to the North there is strength of another kind on display; fragile, like a damascene blade. The kind that may bend under terrible strain but will never break:

Any day now, Erica Booth’s world will change again.

Nearly three months after the love of her life died fighting in Iraq, the 21-year-old Dighton mom is having a baby boy. Her heartache will turn to joy, but not fully and not forever, because Tristan Joshua will never know his dad.

“It’s bittersweet. Tristan is definitely a symbol of a new beginning. Josh and I had a separate life and now the kids and I are starting one,” said Booth, who is nine months pregnant and mother to their 16-month-old daughter, Grace.

First Lt. Joshua L. Booth, 23, of Sturbridge, a platoon leader in the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, Echo Company, was in Iraq barely a month when he was killed by a sniper’s bullet.

She remembers the e-mails he sent before he died. “He had been calling him Tristan. He e-mailed me asking me if I’m feeling all right and if Tristan was playing soccer in my belly at night,” Booth said, recalling that when she was pregnant with Grace, her kicking woke up her husband.

But Storey, who knew her husband for eight years, said she feels lucky she had as much time with him as she did.

“If anything, (the time together) makes me happy,” she said. “My husband was fortunate enough to have two kids to leave behind a piece of us, of our relationship, of our marriage. I feel blessed.”

Blessed. It is not this dear lady who is blessed. It is the nation her husband and she live in. May we never forget this. Far to the west on the other coast, a young man ponders what he will do with the precious gift of freedom:

I'm the kind of guy who's not supposed to be joining the military these days. I grew up in an affluent community. I attend a first-tier private university. I'm fortunate to have many career and personal options.

Several months ago, I was accepted for the Marines' Platoon Leaders Class (PLC), a two-summer program leading to commission as a second lieutenant upon graduation. I'd like to explain a little about why and what it means to me.

Although I've been curious about the military for years, and knew several guys from high school who joined the Navy, went to West Point, or were planning on PLC, I talked about my own interest seldom. Now I wonder how many kids might have considered it seriously, if talk had been more open.

When I got to college, I found that most of my new friends and a lot of the people I respect are military. As former high-school jocks (mostly football and lacrosse), we value camaraderie, discipline and challenge and a lot of men and women certainly join for those reasons. But we're also united by patriotism.

Not the flag-waving, ready-to-die kind. Just a quiet sense that we have a responsibility as citizens to serve, and the fact that there's no draft doesn't change that. Freedom is a debt that we're always paying interest on.

And in a quiet office in western Maryland a very tired and sad Marine wife is trying to make sense of the news that Petty Officer Kirby, a Navy Corpsman she wrote about just one month ago, has been wounded by sniper fire. Petty Officer Kirby is one of the faces who haunt me:

Petty Officer Third Class Dustin E. Kirby clutched the injured marine’s empty helmet. His hands were coated in blood. Sweat ran down his face, which he was trying to keep straight but kept twisting into a snarl.

He held up the helmet and flipped it, exposing the inside. It was lined with blood and splinters of bone.

“The round hit him,” he said, pausing to point at a tiny hole that aligned roughly with a man’s temple. “Right here.”

Petty Officer Kirby, 22, is a Navy corpsman, the trauma medic assigned to Second Mobile Assault Platoon of Weapons Company, Second Battalion, Eighth Marines. Everyone calls him Doc. He had just finished treating a marine who had been shot by an Iraqi sniper.

“It was 7.62 millimeter,” he continued. “Armor piercing.”

He reached into his pocket and retrieved the bullet, which he had found. “The impact with the Kevlar stopped most of it,” he said. “But it tore through, hit his head, went through and came out.”

He put the bullet in his breast pocket, to give to an intelligence team later. Sweat kept rolling off his face, mixed with tears. His voice was almost cracking, but he managed to control it and keep it deep. “When I got there, there wasn’t much I could do,” he said.

Then he nodded. He seemed to be talking to himself. “I kept him breathing,” he said.

What can we know, any of us, really, of the face of war? As a writer I grapple with it daily. As a Marine wife and mother I am horrified by it. As an American I both have nightmares about it and yet will never waver in my support:

I hate this war.

There is not a day that goes by, I don't think, when I don't think about how much I hate it, and the immense, soul-shattering suffering it has caused.

But do not mistake me for one instant, my support has never wavered.

Three nights ago in my dream, all I remember is feeling like a giant hand had squeezed my heart and all the air had suddenly been sucked out of my lungs, leaving me leaden and empty. I wanted to sink into the earth and let it swallow me forever.

Reading about Captain Peterson's funeral, I was suddenly swept back in time to the day the war became real for me; to a tiny chapel in southern California. To the sight of Marines I was used to seeing laughing, joking around in the gym, always cocky, full of themselves, suddenly overcome with grief.

Struggling not to break down.

And in my ears is the sound of a song that for years was associated with smoky barrooms and pool tables and laughter and a suddenly caught hand and a warm embrace:

Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared
Beneath the stars above
For a moment
All the world was right
How could I have known
You'd ever say goodbye

And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end
The way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss
The dance...

I can never hear that song now without tears springing to my eyes.

Because the image that is indelibly burned into my retinas is that of a Marine widow, lovely, fragile yet steely strong, bending over her husband's body. Fussing one last time with his dress blues, adjusting the damned stiff collar that never will lie just right. I have done that so many times....

And then gently kissing him and lowering the casket door.

Goodbye my love.

Goodbye.

Some people will never understand the gift of freedom. Not what they died for, but what these men and women lived for. But I do.

I do.

This is for you, Mr. Ignatius.

And for you, Petty Officer Kirby. Words are so inadequate, and perhaps for all of us this war is seen through a different lens.

But this is how it seems to this Marine wife.

Please open your hearts:

Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund

Project Valour IT Fund

Posted by Cassandra at 06:06 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

December 19, 2006

Why Colin Powell Is Impractical...

...and why he ought to know better:

Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell said yesterday that the United States is losing what he described as a "civil war" in Iraq and that he is not persuaded that an increase in U.S. troops there would reverse the situation. Instead, he called for a new strategy that would relinquish responsibility for Iraqi security to the government in Baghdad sooner rather than later, with a U.S. drawdown to begin by the middle of next year.

Powell's comments broke his long public silence on the issue and placed him at odds with the administration. [Ed. note: 'At odds with the administration?' There's a shocker for you, though what 'long public silence' this reporter can be referring to is something of a mystery.] President Bush is considering options for a new military strategy -- among them a "surge" of 15,000 to 30,000 troops added to the current 140,000 in Iraq, to secure Baghdad and to accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others have proposed; or a redirection of the U.S. military away from the insurgency to focus mainly on hunting al-Qaeda terrorists, as the nation's top military leaders proposed last week in a meeting with the president.

"I agree with the assessment of Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton," Powell said, referring to the study group's leaders, former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former Indiana congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D). The situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating, and we're not winning, we are losing. We haven't lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around."

So let's get this straight. For months now, US forces in Iraq have been in the process of standing down - a virtual, if not a physical redeployment. On the domestic front the signals we've sent the Iraqis were clear and unequivocal: America is divided and dispirited. The resulting uptick in violence was timed to coincide with our election cycle; the insurgents successfully discouraged a majority of Americans from believing we should stay the course and ensure stability and democratic governance in Iraq.

The results? Nothing succeeds like success. The insurgency has been encouraged to increase its efforts. They read our newspapers. They know we're not serious about preventing them from seizing power.*** Various factions are now fighting for supremacy; aided and abetted in this endeavor by whom? Iran and Syria, who have a vested interest in seeing the United States distracted and humiliated.

And what is Colin Powell's analysis of the situation?

1. Our current policy isn't working because we have too few troops on the ground. Wunderbar. So we shouldn't continue on our present course.

2. Since disengaging and drawing down have been such an overwhelming success so far, the only obvious answer is to further decrease the US presence! Let's not examine too closely the question of just why insurgent factions are fighting (Gosh - could it be to gain control of the government?). And let's not look at who is supporting them, or what their motives might be.

3. The undeniable fact that Iran and Syria are currently arming the insurgents and have no interest in helping us achieve our goals presents no logical reason to believe they won't help us if we ask nicely. After all, we all have to talk to people we don't like. This was such a head exploder that in the interests of preserving my own sanity, I am going to ignore it entirely and go back to discussing item #2.

If the Iraqis can't control the violence now with our help, could it be that if we withdraw there will be no one to oppose the insurgents? Don't you think they will seize control, making the votes of the Iraqis and the deaths of almost 3000 American servicemen and women meaningless?

Never mind the fact that it was the opinion of the military advisors to the Iraq Study Group that their rapid withdrawal plan was a recipe for disaster:

Ever since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has struggled in vain to tamp down the violence in Iraq and to build up the capacity of Iraq’s security forces. Now the study group is positing that the United States can accomplish in little more than one year what it has failed to carry out in three.

In essence, the study group is projecting that a rapid infusion of American military trainers will so improve the Iraqi security forces that virtually all of the American combat brigades may be withdrawn by the early part of 2008.

Never mind that it is the military themselves who have asked for more troops. What do they know? They're just the folks on the ground. Mr. Powell has questions. Well, so do we all:

The summer's surge of U.S. troops to try to stabilize Baghdad failed, he said, and any new attempt is unlikely to succeed. "If somebody proposes that additional troops be sent, if I was still chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my first question . . . is what mission is it these troops are supposed to accomplish? . . . Is it something that is really accomplishable? . . . Do we have enough troops to accomplish it?"

I am not necessarily in favor of sending troops just to send troops. I tend to suspect ideas that suddenly come into fashion and sweep Washington. Earlier it was "listen to the Generals!". Of course, the burning question of the day always becomes, which Generals do you listen to? Currently Generals Casey and Abizaid are being bad-mouthed. The Conventional Wisdom crowd are calling for their heads; they are "tired" - it is "time for them to go". One might lend the CW some credence on the basis of results if one were inclined to think our military had had an entirely free hand over there, but given the capricious nature of the political howling on Capitol Hill, it is best viewed with some suspicion.

Nonetheless, Powell asks some good questions. Some are answerable, some perhaps not.

What are the troops supposed to accomplish? That's pretty straightforward: get the security situation in Baghdad under control. The only question here is whether we will allow them to do that.

Is is accomplishable? Let's look at Powell's logic: if securing Baghdad is not accomplishable with 35,000 US troops, how does it make sense for us to withdraw by mid-2007? How, exactly, does he expect the Iraqi forces to maintain order if we can't do it? What will happen if there is a bloodbath? Does he really think we won't have to go back in? What dream world is he living in?

Here are a few questions for Mr. Powell:

He mentions that this summer's surge of troops was a failure. Was it anything on the order of 35,000? Is that even comparable in scale to what is being proposed now? Why is he so sure that a concerted effort from us (for once) won't break the back of the insurgency?

But the coup de gras has got to be this statement:

Before any decision to increase troops, he said, "I'd want to have a clear understanding of what it is they're going for, how long they're going for.

De-lightful. De-lovely. And it all sounds so obvious when he states it that way. So logical, almost Kerryesque in its almost professorial approach to world affairs. Of course, we knew that, just as we knew the Coalition would have been so much stronger with the troops and financial support that France and Germany had absolutely no intention of providing to us.

But what war, in the entire history of mankind, has ever been fought like that?

When do we EVER know the end date?

Wars are political endeavors, and anyone who tries to pretend they are cut and dried set pieces played out on the battlefield isn't thinking straight. War is politics by other means and warfighters, like it or not, serve at the pleasure of their civilian leaders. They know that, going in. They serve to enforce the foreign policy objectives of the nation they fight for and foreign policy objectives are fluid and change in response to events we can neither anticipate nor control.

We're not going to know, in advance, "exactly how long we're going in for". That is ridiculous, just more of Powell's woolgathering disguised as stunning feats of insight.

I don't want to lose my husband. I haven't wanted to lose anyone during this overlong war. But I am sick, sick to death, of people's muddle headed longing for certainty in an essentially uncertain business. I'm scared too, and weary, and sad - sadder than I can express sometimes - but for God's sake get a grip. Ask the questions if you must.

But let's be realistic about what we're doing and why, and what the decision space is here. It's not infinite.

***and by this, I mean our long-term political will, not the will or the ability of our military, to whom I mean no disrespect

Posted by Cassandra at 05:08 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

December 11, 2006

War, Through A Child's Eyes

Now that I work, I find I don't enjoy the yearly round of shopping, baking, decorating, and holiday parties as much as I used to. Too many 'to-do' items crammed into too few hours often leave me feeling more frantic than festive, and visions of sugarplums are displaced by shopping lists during those all too short winter nights before the alarm clock summons me to another round of holiday mayhem. At first, last Friday night seemed no different. I sat curled up on the sofa; a glass on wine in one hand and before me a stack of boxes full of Christmas cards, their envelopes hand-lettered with studious care:

"Fellow American"
"Happy Holidays!"
"Dear Soldier"
"USA Army"
"Troopers!"
"Dear Fellow Human"
"Dear Friend"
"Hello military person!"
...and the number one choice of first grade boys (often with a flag or other patriotic emblem): "Go USA!"

Then there was my favorite in the bunch:

"Hellooooooo Troop!"

I had before me the work of grades K-5 of my daughter in law's elementary school destined for Operation Santa. My task for the evening, to read each one before sending them on to the next step in their journey: Carrie Constantini, who would make sure they got to their final destination.

After three years of writing about the global war on terror my faith, once almost boundless, had been at a low ebb. But as I sipped my glass of wine and read I began to smile, then to chuckle softly, then finally I was laughing out loud. Recently, Hillary Clinton took it on herself, out of her vast military experience, to advise General John Abizaid that "Hope is not a method" for winning wars.

The General responded:

“I would also say that despair is not a method.”

“When I come to Washington, I feel despair. When I’m in Iraq with my commanders, when I talk to my soldiers and Iraqi leadership, they are not despairing,”

Neither, apparently, are the children of this nation. Somehow they have managed to resist the waves of negativity emanating from Capitol Hill. As I opened card after card, messages of hope, faith, and reassurance came through loud and clear whether from tiny tots barely able to eke out a few letters or 5th graders who wrote lovely (and often literate) notes to our men and women in uniform:

"Thank you for all you do."

"Thanks so much for keeping us safe. I hope we win."

"Thank you for protecting our country."

"Win this war for us!"

"Go USA!"

"Stay safe!"

"You are very brave to fight for us."

Sometimes the message was very simple, like this one from a 5 year old:

"We love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Of course, where there are children, there are questions. Lots of questions:

"Dear Troopers:

I wonder how you do all that fighting? Do people from other countrys come and fight you when you are sleeping?"

"What is your favorite book? What is your job in the military?"

Do you have a dog? Do you miss your Mom?

Do you like to wear suits?

"Are you scared? If I were fighting a war, I would be scared. I hope you are not scared and I hope that you come back soon."

"Can you read my handwriting? If not then I am writing to nobody."

Some told "their soldier" about their lives and asked for details in return, adding "please write back!". One boy displayed a touching regard for the privacy of his pen pal, adding that he'd like to have all his questions answered, but only "if it's not too personal". Some added their own special touches: one boy closed his card with the note, "Here is a little poem I wrote myself...Just to get you through the day." Another added a quote from Oscar Wilde. A girl made tons of extra homemade cards - a labor of love.

It is odd, on a winter's night, to look at war through the eyes of a child. To see what we adults have made so unbearably complex, reduced once more to first principles. Whose side are we on? Who do we want to win? Do we even want to win this war? A frequent (and wistful) thought, expressed in many ways but running like a constant thread through the holiday wishes sent to our troops was:

"Fight hard! We appreciate all you do. Please win this war for us."

"It would be nice to win."

Yes it would. It would be nice to win.

Go USA! And thank you. Thank you for all you do. We love you.

Posted by Cassandra at 05:18 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

December 04, 2006

All Of A Sudden, "Stay The Course" Not So Stupid?

What a difference a few days can make in the 'conventional wisdom'. After literally years of derisory mocking, the New York Times seems to have had an epiphany:

In the cacophony of competing plans about how to deal with Iraq, one reality now appears clear: despite the Democrats’ victory this month in an election viewed as a referendum on the war, the idea of a rapid American troop withdrawal is fast receding as a viable option.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff are signaling that too rapid an American pullout would open the way to all-out civil war. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group has shied away from recommending explicit timelines in favor of a vaguely timed pullback. The report that the panel will deliver to President Bush next week would, at a minimum, leave a force of 70,000 or more troops in the country for a long time to come, to train the Iraqis and to insure against collapse of a desperately weak central government.

Even the Democrats, with an eye toward 2008, have dropped talk of a race for the exits, in favor of a brisk stroll.

And conservatives, who just a few short weeks ago were whining that the President was "going wobbly on Iraq", finally decided that (wonder of wonders!) maybe Bush has meant what he's been saying all along:

While George W. Bush's many critics and detractors portray him as facing the same dilemma as Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, Bush himself seems determined to proceed the way Harry Truman did in Korea -- or, as some might put it, as Winston Churchill did after Dunkirk.

Leading Democrats like Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan have been calling for troop pullouts from Iraq starting in four to six months. The Iraq Study Group co-chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, The New York Times tells us, will recommend a "gradual pullback" of troops, direct negotiations with Iran and Syria and pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.

But Bush seems unpersuaded. "There's one thing I'm not going to do," he said at last week's NATO summit in Riga, Latvia. "I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete."

In this, Bush has the support of others. Defense Secretary-designate Robert Gates opposes a quick pullout. So does the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Central Command's Gen. John Abizaid.

They never learn.

Posted by Cassandra at 09:05 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 16, 2006

Iraq: The Road Ahead

Yesterday while stuck in Beltway traffic the half vast editorial staff survived another close encounter with the Senate Armed Services Committee courtesy of National Public Radio. The readership will no doubt be relieved to learn that owing to a suspicious dearth of DimWitted bumperstickerage on our nation's highways, yesterday's experience will not be producing one of our epic rants.

The hearings themselves presented a perfect microcosm of the debate over where we are in Iraq, what went wrong, and where to go from here. In many ways they were the war on the home front in small: rife with truisms and trite oversimplifications cited by those on both sides of the political aisle with axes to grind, most of which were patiently batted down time and time again by tired men brought in to face a mix of mostly hostile, but at times sympathetic questions from people who want simple answers to complex problems.

The problem is that in most cases there aren't any, and the few answers that are simple are unpalatable.

THE CURRENT SITUATION

George Friedman gives a cogent summary of the current situation in Iraq:

Essentially, U.S. strategy in Iraq is to create an effective coalition government, consisting of all the major ethnic and sectarian groups. In order to do that, the United States has to create a security environment in which the government can function. Once this has been achieved, the Iraqi government would take over responsibility for security. The problem, however, is twofold. First, U.S. forces have not been able to create a sufficiently secure environment for the government to function. Second, there are significant elements within the coalition that the United States is trying to create who either do not want such a government to work -- and are allied with insurgents to bring about its failure -- or who want to improve their position within the coalition, using the insurgency as leverage. In other words, U.S. forces are trying to create a secure environment for a coalition whose members are actively working to undermine the effort.

The core issue is that no consensus exists among Iraqi factions as to what kind of country they want. This is not only a disagreement among Sunnis, Shia and Kurds, but also deep disagreements within these separate groups as to what a national government (or even a regional government, should Iraq be divided) should look like. It is not that the Iraqi government in Baghdad is not doing a good job, or that it is corrupt, or that it is not motivated. The problem is that there is no Iraqi government as we normally define the term: The "government" is an arena for political maneuvering by mutually incompatible groups.

Until the summer of 2006, the U.S. strategy had been to try to forge some sort of understanding among the Iraqi groups, using American military power as a goad and guarantor of any understandings. But the decision by the Shia, propelled by Iran, to intensify operations against the Sunnis represented a deliberate decision to abandon the political process. More precisely, in our view, the Iranians decided that the political weakness of George W. Bush, the military weakness of U.S. forces in Iraq, and the general international environment gave them room to reopen the question of the nature of the coalition, the type of regime that would be created and the role that Iran could play in Iraq. In other words, the balanced coalition government that the United States wanted was no longer attractive to the Iranians and Iraqi Shia. They wanted more.

The political foundation for U.S. military strategy dissolved. The possibility of creating an environment sufficiently stable for an Iraqi government to operate -- when elements of the Iraqi government were combined with Iranian influence to raise the level of instability -- obviously didn't work. The United States might have had enough force in place to support a coalition government that was actively seeking and engaged in stabilization. It did not have enough force to impose its will on multiple insurgencies that were supported by factions of the government the United States was trying to stabilize.

By the summer of 2006, the core strategy had ceased to function.

The implications of Friedman's analysis are striking:

1. Currently the US is caught in a chicken-or-the-egg conundrum: a precondition for handing over security to the Iraqis is the establishment of a sufficiently secure environment that the Iraqi coalition government can function, yet members of that coalition are actively fomenting civil unrest in hopes of furthering their own agendas.

2. US forces may have been sufficient to maintain order if the Iraqi coalition government were working together, but the perceived political weakness of George Bush and the US military allowed Iran to split the coalition and entice the Iraqi Shia into abandoning a political solution.

What does item number two tell us about the effects of dissent in wartime? Earlier this year there was some good discussion about the limits of dissent here, here, and here. Sadly, in the current political environment any responsible discussion of whether citizens of a free society have any duty to consider the consequences of their words during wartime is inevitably greeted with hysterical accusations of goosestepping all over the First Amendment. Ironically, it is the advocates of free speech themselves who seek to declare the topic of responsible speech "off limits" with their talk of swift boating, questioning of patriotism, and chickhawks rather than facing it honestly. These are not rational responses to a serious question, but covert ad hominem attacks designed to divert attention from a very real consequence of their dissent: that it is, in fact, demonstrably useful to our enemies whether or not they intend it to be. We know this for a fact: they openly make use of it in their propapaganda broadcasts and recruiting efforts. And yet, to mention this obvious truth is somehow considered hitting 'below the belt'.

Friedman's point about Iran having driven a wedge into the Iraqi coalition government was taken up by Senator Joe Lieberman during the Committee hearings yesterday. Lieberman came to the relief of embattled General John Abizaid, who had been facing a torrent of questions from Senator John McCain, who favors sending an additional 20,000 troops into Iraq:

Under hard questioning from McCain, Abizaid spoke frankly about the stress on U.S. forces, which he said constrains any major troop increase. "We can put in 20,000 more Americans tomorrow and achieve a temporary effect. But when you look at the overall American force pool that's available out there, the ability to sustain that commitment is simply not something that we have right now with the size of the Army and the Marine Corps," he said. He later told a House panel that exceeding current troop levels would place "a tremendous strain" on the Army.

McCain, who favors a significant boost in U.S. forces, quizzed Abizaid on why more troops have not been sent to the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, where U.S. casualties are among the highest in Iraq and Marine commanders say they lack sufficient forces.

"I regret deeply that you seem to think that the status quo and the rate of progress we're making is acceptable. I think most Americans do not,"

Abizaid sees things differently:

The general also discouraged calls for a timetable to withdraw. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, said the security situation in Iraq is improving -- and he does not see a need for more U.S. combat troops.

Abizaid told the Senate Armed Service Committee that a key to success in Iraq is to increase the size of the Iraqi forces, not U.S. troops. He said the Iraqis have to do it for themselves. "I believe in my heart of hearts that the Iraqis must win this battle with our help," Abizaid says. "We can win with the Iraqis if we put our effort into the Iraqis as our first priority, and that's what I think we should do."

Abizaid proposed beefing up the size of the American training teams. There are now about 4,000 soldiers and Marines taking part in the training effort, mostly in 11-man teams. That action alone, he says, may temporarily boost the level of U.S. forces, now at 152,000.

There are about 315,000 Iraqi security forces that the Pentagon says are trained and equipped. But commanders on the ground say Iraqi units are undermanned and not well equipped. And in some cases, they have been infiltrated by sectarian militias.

Abizaid said violence has eased somewhat, and American and Iraqi troops are working closely together. He also told the senators that the Iraqi government must reach out to the Sunni minority and curb militia groups.

Hayden, director of the CIA, was more pessimistic than Abizaid about the prospects for ending the violence. But strikingly he was no less adamant that this was a struggle we cannot afford to lose, and he also concurred with Abizaid that in the end, the Iraqis would be the decisive factor, saying that 'in the end, victory must have an Iraqi and not an American face'. Hayden's prepared statement to the Committee lays out the stakes compellingly:

An al-Qa’ida victory in Iraq would mean a fundamentalist state that shelters jihadists and serves as a launching pad for terrorist operations throughout the region—and in the United States.

Under questioning by Senator Lieberman, Hayden also made another interesting comment. In a line of questioning clearly aimed at the Iraq Study Group, Lieberman asked about the presence of Iranian agents in Iraq. Hayden characterized their aims as clearly antithetical to ours and their presence as "extremely deleterious" to establishing a democratic government and getting the violence under control. In his opinion, their desire was to establish a Shia-run government rather than one in which power was democratically shared.

THE WAY FORWARD

After five years of being the Party in Opposition, of complaining that Donald Rumsfeld and the White House refused to listen to the generals, the big question that ought to be looming in the minds of Americans is, now that they're in power, will the Democratic Party listen to the generals they've been quoting for five years? Because they are speaking, and speaking with one voice: stay the course, and send more troops:

One of the most resonant arguments in the debate over Iraq holds that the United States can move forward by pulling its troops back, as part of a phased withdrawal. If American troops begin to leave and the remaining forces assume a more limited role, the argument holds, it will galvanize the Iraqi government to assume more responsibility for securing and rebuilding Iraq.

This is the case now being argued by many Democrats, most notably Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who asserts that the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq should begin within four to six months.

But this argument is being challenged by a number of military officers, experts and former generals, including some who have been among the most vehement critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies.

For a long time, John McCain was a lonely campaigner for an increase in our commitment in Iraq an Afghanistan. Some attribute his stance to political convenience, but with one son in the Marine Corps and another at the US Naval Academy, McCain is one of the few to have put the future of his family in harm's way. And his arguments are gaining force: Chester reports that, contrary to the President's critics (who have accused him, prematurely, of caving to the Baker commission) he is considering sending more troops to Iraq:

President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration's internal deliberations . . .

Point one of the strategy calls for an increase rather than a decrease in overall US force levels inside Iraq, possibly by as many as 20,000 soldiers . . . The reinforcements will be used to secure Baghdad, scene of the worst sectarian and insurgent violence, and enable redeployments of US, coalition and Iraqi forces elsewhere in the country.

Point two of the plan stresses the importance of regional cooperation to the successful rehabilitation of Iraq. This could involve the convening of an international conference of neighbouring countries or more direct diplomatic, financial and economic involvement of US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait . . .

Chester comments:

The idea that Syria or Iran will help much here is laughable. But asking Kuwait or Saudi Arabia for assistance of some sort, whether diplomatic, financial, or of an intelligence nature, could pay great dividends. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are primarily Sunni states, and it will not please them to know that the US is abandoning Iraq to be dominated by Iran, and probably for its Sunni population to be ethnically cleansed. It is in their interests to assist us -- if only for the realpolitik goal of thwarting Iran's regional ambitions.

Exactly. But more importantly, the threat of involving neighboring Sunni states strengthens our hand and gives the US much-needed leverage over Iran - something that George Friedman pointed out in his excellent Stratfor analysis. The missing piece in all of this has always been what a visibly weakened Bush administration could offer (or alternatively hold over) Iran to bring them to the table:

This is going to be the hard part for Bush. The last thing he wants is to enhance Iranian power. But the fact is that Iranian power already has been enhanced by the ability of Iraqi Shia to act with indifference to U.S. wishes. By complying with this recommendation, Washington would not be conceding much. It would be acknowledging reality. Of course, publicly acknowledging what has happened is difficult, but the alternative is a continuation of the current strategy -- also difficult. Bush has few painless choices.

What a settlement with Iran would look like is, of course, a major question. We have discussed that elsewhere. For the moment, the key issue is not what a settlement would look like but whether there can be a settlement at all with Iran -- or even direct discussions. In a sense, that is a more difficult problem than the final shape of an agreement.

Bottom line: the Democrats, having weakened our own bargaining position almost irreparably, have now gained a measure of power. A mainstay of their argument was that the civilian leadership had a duty to listen to the military.

The question is, now that they have a voice, will they do as they advised the White House to do, or will they recklessly push an political agenda that virtually every intelligence and military analyst agrees is hostile to our long term interests?

Stay tuned - it's going to be a long, bumpy ride.

Update: A clarification is perhaps in order.

I have, in general, not been sympathetic to the 'more boots on the ground' school of thought, if by more boots on the ground one means the oft-misnamed Powell doctrine of overwhelming force, which I believe is clearly misapplied in a counterinsurgency situation. But that doesn't mean I reject the notion of careful application of marginal increases in force (for instance, restoring our current troop numbers to their former levels) out of hand.

See TigerHawk's post on Counterinsurgency for some valuable perspective. I thought Mycroft's comment particularly astute: within reason, it's not how many boots on the ground, but how you deploy them that matters.

One of the mainstays of counterinsurgency doctrine is minimum force.

If your force becomes too large and unwieldy, then the commanders become terribly out of touch with the local situation as they become absorbed in directing the operations of their own personnel, which is a far more familiar and welcome task. Also, with a long view, a minimal troop presence forces the locals to stand up and take charge, instead of allowing them to become grievously dependent on your supplies and firepower.

However, it is also of primary importance to use the troops you do have wisely: to put them on the ground, in support of your political goals. So I wonder: what would have happened had those 500 troops Lt. Hegseth talks about been deployed in Samarra proper, bunking down with the locals, instead of coagulating at a large base? And, also, would Lt. Hegseth's achievements in Samarra better stand the test of time if the City Council always had a large American presence to fall back on, or if they learned, slowly, painfully, but surely, to stand up on their own?

Too few troops, or too few in hidden bases away from the locals, and you never get a handle on the situation. Too many, and the locals become dependent on you even as you become alienated from them. On these considerations does counterinsurgency turn.

This aligns well with General Abizaid's testimony before the SASC, and this gets to the second part of my clarification. I said the Democrats should listen to the Generals, but again the question becomes one of General-shopping, which is a detestable practice whose perpetrators should be taken to the nearest public square and shot without delay. It strikes me that retired Generals are perhaps not best versed in the resource constraints of the active forces, and so are not the best source of "expert testimony" on what the services can afford to pony up at this time, nor on what is needed in theater.

With the awful, awful specter of Darth Rummy finally gone, perhaps the poor pitiful scared active duty Generals yearning to breathe free and drink of the wonderful nectar of First Amendment candor can FINALLY say what they really think....

/sarcasm. We've listened to at least a year of Democrat insinuations that some of our nation's finest are at best cowards and at worst liars. Now that Rumsfeld has stepped down, one wonders what will be their excuse for disregarding their testimony? In any event, their opinions should weigh far more heavily in any decisions made by Congress than those of men long since retired and out of the decision and information loops.

But then I'm just a dumb Marine wife.

Update II: Patrick sends: I have a related essay at American Spectator online today that you may find interesting. Do check it out - it's excellent. Bonus points for the Vizzini reference...

Regarding the predictability of Muslim-on-Muslim violence, the editorial staff had to laugh at this item a few days ago, which shows that not only the White House had high hopes for things not taking as long after the fall of Baghdad:

we should have no illusions; that it’s going to take at least two to three months of a very strong military presence in Iraq to re-establish law and order, get humanitarian assistance going, get the water going, the electricity going, in other words establish the secure premise upon which reconstruction can take place both physically in the country and in terms of political evolution. But there should be a performance-based phase-out of the U.S. military presence. Let’s establish law and order. Let’s get the reconstruction progress going forward as quickly as possible, and turn it over to an emerging Iraqi leadership, mostly from within and those from without who have credibility inside, and allow them to run their country. The longer we stay, the more we will be identified as being occupiers and not liberators. It’s a tough call to make, and you can’t predict at what date on the calendar that call should be made.

A few of you (Don Brouhaha?) may note with some amusement the last name of the author, our former envoy to Syria. Holy miscalculation, Batman!

Posted by Cassandra at 05:07 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

October 19, 2006

Media's Tet Offensive Sapping Our Will

Did you happen to catch the headlines this morning? From all accounts an historic event occurred; a watershed of epic proportions. In a war where our side has suffered endless setbacks we finally saw the first glimmering of clear and unequivocal victory, long past the time when reason or even blind hope could have predicted it. But all the same, there it was this morning; the words fairly lighting up screen as if to say, "Mission Accomplished":

BUSH ACKNOWLEDGES IRAQ-VIETNAM WAR COMPARISON.

How many men died to make that dream a reality? Yes, the President of the United States finally admitted what legions of anonymous Pentagon insiders have whispered amongst themselves, but only brave truth tellers like Keith Olbermann had the courage to speak publicly in that forbidding Climate of Fear in which we find ourselves, post-9/11:

Bush said insurgents are trying "to inflict enough damage that we'd leave."

Still, it was shocking to hear the words spoken out loud. Everything the insurgents have done to this point has been with one goal in mind: to secure our withdrawal. But why do they want us to leave?

No obstacle now prevents them from participating in the democratic process - none at all. But the insurgents are not content to share power with their countrymen. These criminals want to force their views on an unwilling populace at gunpoint, a dream they can only acheive with our help: help the aimless Bush administration has so far refused to provide. Fortunately, men like John Murtha and his Defeatocrats have a Plan to save the day. We can make everyone happy except, perhaps, the provisional government of Iraq (which has asked us to stay) and the innocent Iraqis who will be slaughtered by out of control militias of course, but no matter. We need only renege on our promises and leave the peaceful citizens of Baghdad defenseless against violent men who refuse to respect the rule of law. Surely with the irritating effect of our presence removed the insurgents will mend their evil ways and suddenly become fans of democracy, though they've shown no signs of democratic leanings so far. Surely they will suddenly become fans of law and order. Surely Iraq will not become another South Vietnam. After all, there are no boats in Iraq, are there? And with the media retreat from Iraq all but complete, America won't have to witness the ensuing bloodbath. It will be just like it was in the good old days when Saddam was in charge: an orderly solution.

We can go back to watching ElimiDate and American Idol. This is, after all, not our problem.

They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they're trying to foment sectarian violence," he said.

The insurgents are trying to turn the Iraqis against each other, trying to foment civil war. Divide and conquer: the oldest strategy in the book. Foreign fighters from outside Iraq are trying to tear Iraq into pieces, and yet the solution of men like James Baker is to talk to our enemies, Iran and Syria, who surely have America's long-term regional interests at heart. No doubt those profoundly democratic regimes will support the fledgling Iraqi government in its attempts to instill respect for human rights and the rule of law.

What is even more heartening is that instead of supporting the Iraqi government, the vast punditocracy, including much of the American Right, has already declared defeat in the name of a return to "realism". This is the response to the gallantry of those purple fingers in that long-ago January election. While Iraq was dodging bullets and burying its dead, America decided the war was cutting into time better spent cruising the aisles at Costco and loading up on jumbo-sized packages of breakfast muffins, chili lime hot wings, and pesto.

But then that is the mark of a civilized nation, isn't it? That is what makes us, unlike them, ready for democracy: the ability to set priorities and stick to them; the ability to be realistic.

Perhaps the saddest thing in all of this is that we have pulled the wool over our own eyes. Since the very beginning of this war, the media have trumpeted the Iraq=Vietnam comparison.

Since the very beginning of this war, some conservative pundits, including this author, have pointed up the irony of that analogy. For Vietnam was won on the battlefield and lost in the newspapers and TV screens of America. It was lost on Capitol Hill. It was a failure of political will, not military force. Fifty-five thousand American men and women died...for nothing. We literally threw their lives away, because we were faithless.

And then we compounded our sin, because after we withdrew from Vietnam we had promised South Vietnam military aid, and we were providing it. South Vietnam was continuing to fight, and they were holding their own. Melvin Laird, SecDef at the time, speaks eloquently of what happens to the powerless when America "forgets" her promises:

The truth about Vietnam that revisionist historians conveniently forget is that the United States had not lost when we withdrew in 1973. In fact, we grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory two years later when Congress cut off the funding for South Vietnam that had allowed it to continue to fight on its own. Over the four years of Nixon's first term, I had cautiously engineered the withdrawal of the majority of our forces while building up South Vietnam's ability to defend itself. My colleague and friend Henry Kissinger, meanwhile, had negotiated a viable agreement between North and South Vietnam, which was signed in January 1973. It allowed for the United States to withdraw completely its few remaining troops and for the United States and the Soviet Union to continue funding their respective allies in the war at a specified level. Each superpower was permitted to pay for replacement arms and equipment. Documents released from North Vietnamese historical files in recent years have proved that the Soviets violated the treaty from the moment the ink was dry, continuing to send more than $1 billion a year to Hanoi. The United States barely stuck to the allowed amount of military aid for two years, and that was a mere fraction of the Soviet contribution.

Yet during those two years, South Vietnam held its own courageously and respectably against a better-bankrolled enemy. Peace talks continued between the North and the South until the day in 1975 when Congress cut off U.S. funding. The Communists walked out of the talks and never returned. Without U.S. funding, South Vietnam was quickly overrun. We saved a mere $297 million a year and in the process doomed South Vietnam, which had been ably fighting the war without our troops since 1973.

I believed then and still believe today that given enough outside resources, South Vietnam was capable of defending itself, just as I believe Iraq can do the same now. From the Tet offensive in 1968 up to the fall of Saigon in 1975, South Vietnam never lost a major battle. The Tet offensive itself was a victory for South Vietnam and devastated the North Vietnamese army, which lost 289,000 men in 1968 alone. Yet the overriding media portrayal of the Tet offensive and the war thereafter was that of defeat for the United States and the Saigon government. Just so, the overriding media portrayal of the Iraq war is one of failure and futility.

Vietnam gave the United States the reputation for not supporting its allies. The shame of Vietnam is not that we were there in the first place, but that we betrayed our ally in the end. It was Congress that turned its back on the promises of the Paris accord. The president, the secretary of state, and the secretary of defense must share the blame. In the end, they did not stand up for the commitments our nation had made to South Vietnam. Any president or cabinet officer who is turned down by Congress when he asks for funding for a matter of national security or defense simply has not tried hard enough. There is no excuse for that failure.

Mr. Laird is right. There is no excuse for that failure.

What's worse, the American media, aided by shameless politicians like John Murtha, have relentlessly cheerled an effort to drive us out of Iraq, despite their own admissions that they know this is precisely what the insurgents want. In a recent piece for the New York Times, Tom Friedman admits as much:

...while there may be no single hand coordinating the upsurge in violence in Iraq, enough people seem to be deliberately stoking the fires there before our election that the parallel with Tet is not inappropriate. The jihadists want to sow so much havoc that Bush supporters will be defeated in the midterms and the president will face a revolt from his own party, as well as from Democrats, if he does not begin a pullout from Iraq.

The jihadists follow our politics much more closely than people realize. A friend at the Pentagon just sent me a post by the “Global Islamic Media Front” carried by the jihadist Web site Ana al-Muslim on Aug. 11. It begins: “The people of jihad need to carry out a media war that is parallel to the military war and exert all possible efforts to wage it successfully. This is because we can observe the effect that the media have on nations to make them either support or reject an issue.”

If there was ever an admission against interest, this is it. Or is it, at long last, simply a declaration of allegiance?

The media are being used, and they know they are being used. They have known it since the war began. They know their goals are aligned with the goals of terrorists, murderers, criminals. And yet, though this is undeniably true, to say it out loud is to question their patriotism. It is incorrect speech, a thought which may not be uttered out loud, may not be voiced for fear of calling down the Furies upon the head of the speaker. Why is it, one wonders, that in a nation where the media ceaselessly inform us the administration is suppressing speech (yet they seem to be screaming dissent at the top of their lungs without repercussions) no one is allowed to question certain dominant memes expressed in the press? Are only some ideas subject to critical review? And who, exactly, gets to sit in judgment? Who controls the megaphone? Certainly not government.

John Murtha, trying to score points on the President, invoked the supposed moral authority of Colin Powell:

Was former secretary of state Colin L. Powell defeatist when he warned: "If you break it, you own it"?

It's a good question, because no matter how you look at it, right now the job in Iraq isn't done and John Murtha doesn't want to finish it. Parts of Iraq are still visibly broken, and he and his cohort want to run away and leave them to pick up the pieces. Yet it would seem that by his own admission, that isn't what Colin Powell, his hero, would have done. It isn't the course for men of honor.

How long, after we withdraw to a "safe, over the horizon position", as men like John Murtha suggest, will it be until the final act in the Iraq=Vietnam drama plays out?

Until a feckless Congress, with the Democrats firmly in control as they were in 1975, votes to pull the rug out from underneath the Iraqis and withdraw even financial assistance? Once the first promise has been broken, the others are easy. They flow like water.

Ralph Peters is right. Osama bin Laden was right.

Once again, we have failed our fighting men and women. Iraq is becoming Vietnam, and it is going to be a bloodbath. I hope the media will be happy with what they have wrought. I hope they are pleased when the death tolls pouring from the new Iraq they fought so hard to achieve reach what they were under the UN sanctions that enabled Saddam to starve, rape, and brutalize his own people as the West watched impassively.

Perhaps they can tell the Mayor of Tal Afar why we are leaving. Perhaps they can explain it to the shade of Rafael Peralta. I cannot. Let Clarence Page do it - let him explain it to the families of all the men who have died. As I look around, I see a broken nation and I am ashamed and disgusted beyond belief at the cowardice and venality on display. This is not the nation I love, that I support, that I would gladly give my life for. I can only pray we remember what we once were before it is too late.

*******************************************************

Inspired, though he may not wish to disclaim all responsibilitity, by this post.

Posted by Cassandra at 05:21 AM | Comments (36)

October 13, 2006

The Gift Of Freedom

Three nights ago, I had a dream.

I don't know why - very likely I was just overtired. In over twenty-five years this has never happened before, but there is a first time for everything.

I was sleeping, and then suddenly I wasn't. And there they were, standing on my doorstep in the dark; not wanting, really, to come in. Not wanting to tell me my husband would never be coming home again.

I don't remember a single thing after that moment, because time just.... stopped.

I wonder whether Patty Peterson felt that way? I didn't know Patty. Our lives never touched.

But the Marine Corps is an odd sort of family and several days ago that family came together over that bizarre superhighway called the Internet to honor a fallen comrade, to silently mourn yet another loss. But more importantly, to see whether there was anything left undone for his widow, a woman none of us had ever met, or were ever likely to. That is a ritual that plays out all too often these days. As JHD says, it never gets any easier.

As it turned out, there wasn't much we could do. As so often happens in life, our erstwhile caring was well meant but misguided. Mrs. Peterson, in the finest tradition of warrior wives since Thermopylae, had put aside her grief for the moment and was busy caring for others:

For all that Captain Peterson's family and loved ones said wonderful things about him, what was most outstanding about this funeral were the Marines themselves. We were all impressed by the last visitation before the funeral began. However, when one young Marine from Captain Peterson's unit came forward to talk, I was surprised and moved beyond anything I'd expected. This young Marine held a notecard with the condolence message from the unit written on it. It was his job to express what Captain Peterson's men wanted to say. He walked up to the podium, clenched and unclenched his jaw, kept adjusting his cap lower and lower, and then, finally, he just stood there. For what seemed like forever but was really closer to five minutes, the young man stood, unable to speak. Finally, he began in a rough voice which kept cracking. He had to stop a few times, and at one point his voice broke entirely. He coughed, wiped his nose and said,"Allergies". And then stood there trying to regain his composure. Finally, after starting and stopping and invoking 'allergies' again, Captain Peterson's widow walked up the stairs to the podium, placed her arm around his shoulders and clasped his hand with hers, and stood with him. After his speech was over, she walked back down with him, walked him to his seat, wiped his face with her handkerchief and went back to her seat. All, of course, without crying herself. Seeing this enormous act of compassion for another even on the day of her husband's funeral was more than we mere mortals could bear, and there was not a dry eye in the church. The other Marines were openly crying, and one, the man whom everyone saluted, had Kleenex in both hands, and kept using first one handful and then the other.

All funerals present the departed one in the best light possible. Everyone who dies has had a positive effect on those around him, at least according to the eulogies, whether or not it is true. However, Captain Peterson really was one of those men who seemed to leave a mark on everyone's life who knew him. His friends from high school openly wept. His best friend from university gave a speech about visiting Arlington National Cemetery with his friend Justin which made everyone in the church sit up just a little prouder and straighter. By the time the funeral was over, everyone was in tears but were also overwhelmed by what a caring and joyful family he'd grown up in. Still, the main themes were still love of family, love of country, loyalty to fellow Marines. That is no longer just a slogan to the Horsemen, something they've heard and read about. Now, that philosophy has a very real face - the face of Marine Captain Justin Peterson. Semper fi, Captain Peterson. The Horsemen all say "Oorah!"

In the coming years, Patty Peterson will no doubt have to answer a lot of questions asked by her children, by herself in the lonely hours of the night, by friends, family, by well meaning and not so well meaning strangers. What did Justin die for? Was it really "worth it"?

These questions can be difficult for any military wife. It may be easier to answer the question, "What did Justin live for?" What were the values he was willing to fight for, to bleed for, to be separated from the wife, sons, and baby daughter he loved more than life itself for, in order to ensure they did not perish from this earth? And that is the proper question, for no individual soldier can guarantee the end state for which he fights. That is a matter far above his pay grade.

When he loads up his gear, he knows only that the nation he serves has decided to take a stand in a world where all too many nations posture, and pontificate about freedom, and yet do nothing when push comes to shove. And yet, like Captain Peterson's funeral, if people like the Patriot Guard choose, instead of acting, to stand by and do nothing, if they are not willing to step up to the plate and defend the rights of peaceful people, the Fred Phelps of this world will quickly take over and chaos will reign. It is not enough to tut-tut, and disapprove, and condemn their actions. Someone needs to say, "Enough", and then do something about it.

But moral clarity is in short supply these days. In the warm and fuzzy world of the moral equivalence brigade, it seems not to matter whether one dies trying to free a foreign land from the grip of homicide bombers and honorless thugs who saw the heads off female aid workers or is killed while committing acts of incredible savagery against innocent civilians: killing is wrong/bad and those who do it must all be equally condemned.

Re "His Corps Value Was Bravery," Column One, Oct. 3

If an individual were to kill 11 people in house-to-house gang warfare in South Los Angeles, we wouldn't call him a hero; we'd call him a bloodthirsty, homicidal maniac. We would fear for the future of our city.

But when it's war, we nominate these individuals for one of the nation's highest honors. We spend several hundred billion dollars to send thousands of our young adults overseas so they can engage in this kind of behavior in someone else's country.

The 11 people we dismiss as insurgents are mourned by their own families, some of whom consider their actions a logical response to a foreign power occupying their land, while others grieve at the senselessness of it all.

The Times has shown its support for the troops, like we're all expected to do. But if Marine Pfc. Christopher Adlesperger had been a street gang member, we would have been subjected to articles explaining how we needed to provide alternatives to murderous organizations that provide a sense of belonging to its members.

T.C. PETERSON
Los Angeles

Once again, America shows its deep, fundamental unseriousness about any topic less shallow than the latest installment of Battlestar Galactica or what they can download onto their iPod. Thus are titanic struggles between civilizations reduced in the blink of an eye to "gang warfare". Don't think too much about it, TC. Reduce it to some meretricious analogy that allows unwanted information to bypass your frontal lobe altogether.

I often wonder what it's like, living in TC's world. Did he, for instance, consider this to be unbearably delicious social commentary?

I understand some people do. But then they are the same people who don't quite "get" Chris Adlesperger. They will never "get" Justin Peterson.

And they will never understand that for some people, the gift of freedom is a pearl beyond price:

Among the things I cannot accept is exploiting the suffering of people to make gains that are not the least related to easing the suffering of those people. I’m talking here about those researchers who used the transparency and open doors of the new Iraq to come and count the drops of blood we shed.

Human flesh is abundant and all they have to do is call this hospital or that office to get the count of casualties, even more they can knock on doors and ask us one by one and we would answer because we’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.

We believe in what we’re struggling for and we are proud of our sacrifices.

I wonder if that research team was willing to go to North Korea or Libya and I think they wouldn’t have the guts to dare ask Saddam to let them in and investigate deaths under his regime.

No, they would’ve shit their pants the moment they set foot in Iraq and they would find themselves surrounded by the Mukhabarat men counting their breaths. However, maybe they would have the chance to receive a gift from the tyrant in exchange for painting a rosy picture about his rule.

They shamelessly made an auction of our blood, and it didn’t make a difference if the blood was shed by a bomb or a bullet or a heart attack because the bigger the count the more useful it becomes to attack this or that policy in a political race and the more useful it becomes in cheerleading for murderous tyrannical regimes.

[...]

Let those fools know that nothing will stop us from walking this road and nothing will stop our friends and allies from helping us reach safe shores. There’s simply no going back even if it cost us more and their fake statistics will not frighten us…our sacrifices, like I said, make us proud because our bloods are not digits in those ugly papers. Our sacrifices are paving the way for future generations to live the better life we couldn’t live.

I hate this war.

There is not a day that goes by, I don't think, when I don't think about how much I hate it, and the immense, soul-shattering suffering it has caused.

But do not mistake me for one instant, my support has never wavered.

Three nights ago in my dream, all I remember is feeling like a giant hand had squeezed my heart and all the air had suddenly been sucked out of my lungs, leaving me leaden and empty. I wanted to sink into the earth and let it swallow me forever.

Reading about Captain Peterson's funeral, I was suddenly swept back in time to the day the war became real for me; to a tiny chapel in southern California. To the sight of Marines I was used to seeing laughing, joking around in the gym, always cocky, full of themselves, suddenly overcome with grief.

Struggling not to break down.

And in my ears is the sound of a song that for years was associated with smoky barrooms and pool tables and laughter and a suddenly caught hand and a warm embrace:

Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared
Beneath the stars above
For a moment
All the world was right
How could I have known
You'd ever say goodbye

And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end
The way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss
The dance...

I can never hear that song now without tears springing to my eyes.

Because the image that is indelibly burned into my retinas is that of a Marine widow, lovely, fragile yet steely strong, bending over her husband's body. Fussing one last time with his dress blues, adjusting the damned stiff collar that never will lie just right. I have done that so many times....

And then gently kissing him and lowering the casket door.

Goodbye my love.

Goodbye.

Some people will never understand the gift of freedom. Not what they died for, but what these men and women lived for. But I do.

I do.

***************

Thanks to Linda for the Rall cartoon.

Yesterday, Linda, Jane, and Chrissie took a moment to remember those who died in the attack on the USS Cole.

Posted by Cassandra at 04:59 AM | Comments (30)

September 06, 2006

Faith And Commitment II: The War Of Perceptions

An old adage maintains that war is just politics by other means, but it has often occurred to me that the obverse is equally true. As often as not these days, politics has come to resemble a ritualized form of warfare in which the participants don't even trouble to hide the knives when they go for the jugular. In war, though, the spoils are usually tangible: treasure, lives, cities destroyed or taken from the enemy. In politics they tend to be more ephemeral: reputations, poll numbers, the ability to sense and exploit a national mood.

It should not surprise us, then, that in deadly parallel to the bloody and protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a no less vicious shadow war has played out here at home. It is a war of perceptions, a war between combatants no less determined than those who will stop at nothing to prevent democracy from taking hold in the Middle East.

Last week the war of words raged on. The administration, tired of mostly baseless accusations that it had failed to justify the war to the American people, attempted once more to make its case. Predictably, that supposedly eagerly awaited case was met with hoots and howls of derision from the party in opposition. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld began with a speech to the American Legion that even the radically right-wing rag Slate magazine realized was primarily aimed at what he saw as biased media coverage of the war. But Rumsfeld had the nerve to express "unacceptable dissent" from the received wisdom that only certain points of view may be expressed on Capitol Hill:

Well, entirely coincidentally no doubt, Rumsfeld gave a rousing speech before an American Legion convention yesterday in which he said that the real problem with the country these days is that too many people "believe that, somehow or someway, vicious extremists [can] be appeased." In a pointed attack on the media, he added: "Any kind of moral and intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can severely weaken the ability of free societies to persevere." There is too much criticism of American atrocities, he said, and not enough praise for those who win medals for valor.

Of course, Slate's clear-sightedness didn't outlast the inevitable spin. Soon enough, Rumsfeld's speech was automagically converted by media luminaries like the AP and Keith Olbermann into a "demonizing" attack on the Democrat party and the "majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land", to which this stunned author can only reply that she was shocked, if gratified, to hear the DNC finally admit they control the media.

This "majority" - it's an interesting demographic, because by all accounts they elected those very same "transient occupants". And though we keep hearing, from smart, smart folks like Jack Murtha, that a "majority" of Americans want us out of Iraq now, no one is really quite sure what that means. Consider, for instance, the intriguing answers to this poll question:

"Do you think the U.S. should withdraw SOME troops from Iraq by the end of the year, or do you think the U.S. should keep the SAME NUMBER of troops in Iraq through the end of the year?" If "Withdraw": "Do you think the U.S. should withdraw ALL troops from Iraq by the end of the year, or do you think the U.S. should keep SOME troops in Iraq through the end of the year?"

...only 26% favor a "withdraw all" strategy by the end of the year, while the majority (69% favor a strategy which withdraws only some or none) don't. Now one should note that 61%, which matches the number who "oppose" or "disapprove" of the war also is the percentage which said "withdraw". However, less than half of the number saying "withdraw" said "withdraw all"...

A clear majority (69%)of this question feel we should remain in Iraq past the end of this year. Interesting.

Last time we checked, 26% was clearly not a majority. Poll numbers have always been ambiguous, and moreover they respond in a volatile fashion to events in the news cycle. Unless the Democrat party intends to rewrite the Constitution to introduce the substitution of Gallup polls for the ballot box and election terms, it would seem the rhetoric about polls is, while interesting, of little moment.

But in the grand tradition of carpe diem, leading Democrats on the Hill sent a letter to the White House with their latest list of demands. It makes for interesting reading:

Over one month ago, we wrote to you about the war in Iraq. In the face of escalating violence, increasing instability in the region, and an overall strain on our troops that has reduced their readiness to levels not seen since Vietnam, we called upon you to change course and adopt a new strategy to give our troops and the Iraqi people the best chance for success.

Apparently the Democrats haven't heard of Operation Together Forward, nor are they aware that last month violence in Baghdad fell by 46%. Of course, you probably didn't hear that either, unless you happened to read the last paragraph of an article in the WaPo entitled (no, not VIOLENCE IN BAGHDAD FALLS BY 46 PERCENT!!!!!), BUT

Iraqi Troops Battle Shiite Militiamen In Southern City
20 U.S.-Backed Soldiers Are Killed.

Of course, since this is not the New York Times, we will helpfully point out that one month does not a "trend" make, and we will also admit that such improvements are utterly useless if they are not sustained. We will even admit that it is easier to get a 46% percent reduction in violence when the level of violence has climbed far too high in the first place. It will not be as easy to sustain that rate of reduction - like most improvements, these things often exhibit an exponential character: rapid improvement at first, followed by a slower, steadier rate of change which will surely be interpreted by the media as a sign that things are going to hell in a handbasket rather than an entirely predictable and normal phenomenon.

Not content with asking the administration to change tactics when they have already done so (evidently with some success, though the media have - per usual - declined to inform the public) the Party in Opposition proceed to the next item on their agenda:

Unfortunately, your stay the course strategy is not working. In the five-week period since writing to you, over 60 U.S. soldiers and Marines have been killed, hundreds of U.S. troops have been wounded, many of them grievously, nearly 1,000 Iraqi civilians have died, and the cost to the American taxpayer has grown by another $8 billion dollars. Even the administration's most recent report to Congress on Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq indicates that security trends in Iraq are deteriorating, and likely to continue to worsen for the foreseeable future. With daily attacks against American and Iraqi troops at close to their highest levels since the start of the war, and sectarian violence intensifying, we can only conclude that our troops are caught in the middle of a low-grade civil war that is getting worse.

This is what passes for insight amongst our elected representatives. If, in war, people are dying, money is being expended and the enemy refuses to give up, the solution is obvious to anyone who is is not a mildly retarded chimpanzee under the control of Zionist overlords: we must quit. Never mind those pesky strategic objectives. On this subject, Adel Abdul Mahdi (the Vice President of Iraq) is compelling:

The mostly bad news from Iraq this summer left a lot of people in Washington, including a few in the Bush administration, feeling confused, anxious and doubtful about whether the Iraqi government can deliver on its promise to stabilize the country. As it turns out, some of Iraq's most powerful leaders have had similar feelings as they have watched the news from Washington.

That was the message of a quiet pre-Labor Day visit here by Adel Abdul Mahdi, who has been one of America's key allies in the attempt to replace Saddam Hussein's totalitarianism with a democratic political system. Mahdi is now Iraq's vice president, but he called his meetings with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and key senators and congressmen a "private visit."

In fact, he was here to deliver a message, and ask a question, on behalf of Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who remains Iraq's single most influential figure -- and the linchpin of the past 40 months of political reconstruction. Sistani's message to Bush, Mahdi told a group of reporters I joined last week, was that "Iraqis are sticking to the principles of the constitution and democracy." But the ayatollah wanted to know if the United States is still on board as well.

"It's a critical moment. We want to be sure that we understand perfectly what's going on, and what is the real strategy of the United States in Iraq," Mahdi said. "We read in the press about different perspectives and attitudes. That's why we want to be clear -- whether there is a Plan B."

Mahdi said he got Bush's commitment to stand by the government. But the uncertainty he expressed on behalf of Sistani was real. "When I read the [American] press, I'm confused," said the burly, bearded economist, who was educated in a Jesuit school in Baghdad and later in France and who speaks fluent English.

The worry goes deeper than that caused by growing calls for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops, or by reports that some even in the Bush administration are considering the abandonment of Iraqi democracy. As Mahdi sees it, American and Iraqi agendas are more broadly out of sync. Whether or not they support the government and the war, Americans are looking for ways to quickly reverse -- or escape from -- the deteriorating situation they see on the ground.

Mahdi, Sistani and other Shiite leaders in the government don't share Washington's perception of a downward spiral. They also don't buy the American sense of urgency -- the oft-expressed idea that the new government has only a few months to succeed. Consequently, the many ideas for silver bullets tossed around in the U.S. debate mostly don't interest them.

You could see this in the conversation I joined at Mahdi's suite at the Ritz Carlton hotel. We journalists peppered him with questions about why the formation of a unity government had failed to reduce the violence. We asked about all the options usually talked about in Washington -- from a rewrite of the constitution to a partition of the country; from an international conference to the dispatch of more U.S. troops.

For the most part, our queries were politely and somewhat laconically dismissed. Iraq is not in a civil war, Mahdi said, and doesn't need more U.S. troops. It has a constitution and elected government, and thus there is no need for an international conference. As for constitutional reform, the Shiite and Kurd parties that wrote the charter last year are waiting for proposals from Sunni dissidents. Mahdi added: "So far we have heard nothing."

So what is the solution? "Time -- that is it," Mahdi replied. "A nation like Iraq needs time. The elections for a permanent government happened eight months ago. We have been in office a few weeks. The people who we have in office have never governed. These people come from oppression and a bad political system. We can't import ministers to Iraq. There will be many mistakes. The Americans made many mistakes, and Iraqis had to support that."

"Our options as Iraqis are that we don't have an exit strategy or any withdrawal timetable," Mahdi said, somewhat bitterly. "We simply go on. . . . It is a process, and brick by brick we are working on it."

When I listen to men like Mahdi, I am shamed.

Shamed as an American. Shamed as a human being.

And I am tired. So tired of the over-complex theories of too-smart men who are so sure the Bush administration got it wrong.

History, I am well aware, may well prove them right. I doubt there are too many men and women fighting over there right now who don't know that, though. I doubt there are too many people in the White House who don't know that.

I think there is a critical difference between men like this and men like Fred Kaplan, who I read dutifully every week as he tells me what a stupid, stupid man George Bush is:

Bush doesn't see this danger—he chooses not to see it—because it plays against his ideology. He views the world as locked in a titanic struggle between, as he put it in today's speech, the forces of "freedom and moderation" and the forces of "tyranny and extremism." This is, in his mind, "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century."

He acknowledges that some of these dark forces are driven by "different sources of inspiration"—some are Sunni, some Shiite, some homegrown terrorists. But he claims that they nonetheless "form the outlines of a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology." As for the sectarian violence between the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq—a phenomenon that would seem to cast doubt on this Manichean vision—Bush explains it away as having been "inspired by Zarqawi." Certainly Abu Musab al-Zarqawi encouraged sectarian violence, but to say he contrived it is ludicrous.

It's not simply ludicrous; it leads to bad policy. It reflects a gross misunderstanding of Iraqi society (which is far more complex than a checkerboard of freedom fighters versus extremists)—and of the real enemies we face (which are far less monolithic or unified than the president seems to believe).

Not all of our enemies are fascists, and not all of our friends are democrats. The danger—really, the crisis—looming in the Middle East is not the threat to freedom and democracy but rather the threat to stability. This is the bugaboo Bush does not want to face. He has said, over and over, that his predecessors' infatuation with stability is what caused the festering stagnation and resentment that bred the terrorists who mounted the attacks of Sept. 11. "Years of pursuing stability to promote peace had left us with neither," Bush said this morning. That's a matter of debate. In any event, the new danger is that Bush's neglect of stability to promote freedom will leave us with neither of those things—to the still-deeper detriment of peace: a trifecta of world misery.

This article, and ones like it, is why I couldn't write yesterday.

I read it, and my mind just shut down. I just, for lack of a better word, fucking shut down. I know I shouldn't swear. It's not ladylike. It would be more professional if I didn't. But I cried when I read those words. I am crying again now. I can't help it - I feel so angry, so helpless in the face of malice and arrogance of that magnitude.

I wonder: did Fred Kaplan read Adel Mahdi's essay in the Washington Post? Will he presume to explain to him the extraordinary complexities of Iraqi society, and how "those people" just aren't ready for democracy?

Or will this man - Robert Kaplan - who makes many good points, but who also, I fear, seems to think that we should be managing the Iraqis into freedom, explain to them they they aren't like us? No, no soup for you today. You are not ready. It is in our national interest for you to have stability, even if that means mass graves and plastic shredders. You have no human dignity. You do not possess that essential spark that makes us believe that you can carry the torch we pass.

Lord knows, the Democrats do not believe it. The current direction is democracy and a united Iraq. But that is not what they want:

We propose a new direction, which would include:

(1) transitioning the U.S. mission in Iraq to counter-terrorism, training, logistics and force protection;
(2) beginning the phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq before the end of this year;
3) working with Iraqi leaders to disarm the militias and to develop a broad-based and sustainable political settlement, including amending the Constitution to achieve a fair sharing of power and resources; and
(4) convening an international conference and contact group to support a political settlement in Iraq, to preserve Iraq's sovereignty, and to revitalize the stalled economic reconstruction and rebuilding effort.

It is September. Phased redeployment "before the end of the year", in addition to being unrealistic from a logistics point of view, is nothing short of a code word for withdrawal.

The Democrat party, not content with meddling with the American Constitution, would like to help the Iraqis amend their Constitution "to achieve a fair sharing of power and resources". Apparently the Democrats find the current arrangement unsatisfactory. So much for representative government. Why are we not surprised?

And in perhaps the ultimate obscenity, there is this demand. The President, having deposed one dictator, should:

"convene an international conference ...to preserve Iraq's sovereignty,".

That's right. Forget that Constitution which is supposed to give the Iraqis the right to govern themselves. The international community is going to step in and show you little brown people how it's done, being notoriously successful in running the affairs of third world nations.

On balance, perhaps the Iraqis are wise to distrust America.

Perhaps there is something wrong with me and perhaps this is a dangerous attitude, but I can't help but prefer the kind of optimism that places freedom and the tools of democracy in the hands of the Iraqis and the Afghans to the kind of arrogant paternalism that wants to preserve stability at all costs and hide the bodies. Al Qaeda has been around since the early 1900's. Islamic extremism is nothing new. People have been dying by the hundreds of thousands in the Middle East for decades.

We have been in a war and just didn't know it. The only question has ever been, which side were we on? It's not a question of being blind to consequences, or of foolishly thinking we can control events. There is no plan detailed enough or grand enough to ensure that history will fall neatly into place: there never has been. This is the awful gift and burden of freedom - that we cannot control what the recipients will do with it, and that we cannot do all their growing for them. To think that if we'd had a large enough army or a good enough plan is, I believe, a fool's dream.

Observing that mistakes were made does not change the present, nor does it prevent us from making similar mistakes in the future. If that were so, simply chanting "Iraq = Vietnam" would have warded off all mischance in the current war.

"If only we had"... is of limited utility, because we cannot know with certainty what would have happened, had we done x, y, or z. Things may have gone better. Or we might be reading a book called Fiasco: How the State Department mismanaged the reconstruction of Iraq . What we do know is that the Iraqis have braved terrorists time and time again to vote and to approve a Constitution that the Democrat leadership now appears to wish to replace with some "international committee".

We know that, though by all accounts neither the Iraqis nor a majority of the American people wish us to leave by the end of the year, the Democrat leadership has just asked the White House to do just that.

And we know one more thing, if simply care enough to stop and think about it. We have made promises, to real people who are depending on us. And as with the fall of Saigon, when the Democrat majority in Congress voted in 1974 to withdraw all military funding from the south Vietnamese Army, making the Paris Peace accords utterly worthless and unenforceable, a lot of real people will die, as they did in April of 1975 when South Vietnam was at last overrun by the Communists.

And perhaps then the many critics of this war will finally have been proved right and perception will have become reality. At last, they will have done what the terrorists could not: made of Iraq another Vietnam.

Posted by Cassandra at 05:44 AM | Comments (16)

September 02, 2006

A Lack Of Clarity

For several days now I've wondered what it was about Keith Olbermann's recent screeditorial that depresses me so deeply. I thought about this a long time because on reading his piece I found I wasn't angry, outraged, or any of those other emotions self-respecting conservative blowhards like myself don before drinking our first vente Colombia Nariño Supremo of the day. Perhaps I need to pay my attention bill more promptly.

The truth is, though, that I just couldn't summon up the requisite degree of reich-wing ardor. Reading his words, I had a sense of the ground dropping away beneath my feet. Suddenly a huge, yawning gulf opened up between Olbermann's Blue America and the one I have lived in all my life. And I don't think there is any way to reach out to the people on the other side of that gulf; to folks who believe in, who approve of, the things he said.

Believe me, I am not saying this to be inflammatory, or hateful, or to stir up trouble.

I am saying it because I don't understand, and because I grieve for my country. This sounds like a cliche, but it is true. Some of my best friends are Democrats. My brother, my sister in law. The godmother of my oldest son, who also happens to be my oldest friend on the face of this earth. I have known her since I was thirteen, which for a military kid with no fixed address is an eternity. My husband's oldest friend, who (for Pete's sake) wears a black "Don't blame me, I voted for Kerry" wrist band". He and I argue good-naturedly, and have for years, about politics. It has never - never - interfered with the love we bear each other. These are the people I have chosen to keep in touch with over the years. There aren't many. And if they believe this man, if they approve of the kind of thing he is saying, then maybe Alec Baldwin isn't the only person who needs to move to France. Maybe I am living in the wrong country. Maybe the America I thought I knew doesn't exist anymore.

I am writing this today because I don't understand people. I don't understand how men like Keith Olbermann become so self important that they think it is acceptable to throw words like "fascism" around lightly. To me, fascists are men who saw the heads off little girls, or helpless aid workers like Margaret Hassan. They are men who strap bombs to confused children and send them off to murder innocent civilians instead of voting on election day and then accepting the will of the people. I'm sorry, but to me there is considerable moral and intellectual confusion involved in the failure to see a basic difference between men like that and Don Rumsfeld, with whom they simply happen to disagree. And if Keith Olbermann finds that insulting, well I'm afraid I don't know what to say to that.

I don't understand how so many people can read his words and ostensibly agree with them? I don't think Keith Olbermann would recognize true fascism if it walked up to him and pulled the frilly panties of real, pointy-fanged oppression over his eyes. Because fascism - true fascism - should and ought to be opposed vigorously. With one's life. It is not a casual thing. People die when fascism, real fascism, enters the room, and people die to prevent that from happening.

Keith Olbermann, and apparently a good many other people, took a great deal of offense at a very few words in Donald Rumsfeld's speech:

Olbermann delivered this commentary with fire and passion while highlighting how Rumsfeld’s comments echoes other times in our world’s history when anyone who questioned the administration was coined as a traitor, unpatriotic, communist or any other colorful term. Luckily we pulled out of those times and we will pull out of these times.

Remember - Rumsfeld did not just call the Democrats out yesterday, he called out a majority of this country. This wasn’t only a partisan attack, but more so an attack against the majority of Americans.

This "summary" highlights, better than anything I could possibly say, the over-emotional response to Rumsfeld's speech. I find it interesting that there were 70 trackbacks to this post, and they never bothered to link to Rumsfeld's speech, nor analyze what he said. I wonder how many of those people ever read his arguments? My guess is, not many.

But more importantly, I wonder how many of those people really thought about what Mr. Olbermann was saying in that essay? Because someone was indeed called out. I'm not sure it was the Democrats:

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

Let me stop right here. How dare he?

Mr. Olbermann, in his essay, said Donald Rumsfeld's speech demanded the sober contemplation of every American. As the wife of a career Marine, the mother of a police officer who is devoting his life to protecting Americans, and the daughter of a career Naval officer, let me suggest that Mr. Olbermann's speech demands the sober contemplation of every American, if only because it is evident to me that a great number of people both approve and agree with him. You do not have to agree with me, I would ask that you do me the courtesy of hearing me out, even if my words upset you.

Mr. Olbermann has just suggested that the United States military, composed of enlisted men, commissioned officers, and noncommissioned officers, (many of whom have postgraduate degrees) who have sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution with their lives, are either so evil or so stupid that they are helping this administration destroy your freedoms here at home.

Think about that for a second. The military aren't all overseas. Many of them are here, stateside. They read the papers. Many of them are lawyers. Some of them [shudder] are even Democrats. Yes, that was a joke. And yet, as this nation is slowly sliding down the otter slide to hell, they are silently allowing your freedoms (and theirs) to be stolen by Darth Rummy and the evil Bush administration, in violation of their sworn duty. And only one man: Keith Olbermann, Bloggerman, stands between us and the New Fascism that threatens to o'ershadow us all.

Mein Gott im Himmell, will the Reichpublic survive? Stay tuned. We hear MSNBC has the exclusive:

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”

Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

Once again, Olbermann has tarred, indirectly, this administration with the brush of McCarthyism. But he is wrong to do so. The First Amendment does not protect speakers from opposing speech. It does not protect us from disagreement, ridicule, or feelings of humiliation when our arguments don't meet with instant approbation. It does not protect us from unreasonable fears of government oppression that has not materialized, but (we keep telling ourselves) could appear at any moment if we are not allowed the delicious thrill of repeating on national television that the President is a jackbooted thug who looks disturbingly like a Chimpanzee.

What men like Olbermann don't seem to understand is that the Bill of Rights doesn't guarantee that others will listen to us. It does not guarantee a lock on the podium, though apparently they fervently desire a world where they could express their viewpoints all day long and no one on the other side of the fence was allowed to riposte, because any response from government to their ideas, by definition, is tyranny, marginalization, and oppression if it causes them, subjectively, to feel bad about themselves, if it causes a "chilling effect".

Donald Rumsfeld, in that speech so few of the chorus of the outraged bothered to link to or (I suspect) read, specifically objected to certain practices of the mainstream media:

It's a strange time:

When a database search of America's leading newspapers turns up literally 10 times as many mentions of one of the soldiers who has been punished for misconduct -- 10 times more -- than the mentions of Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith, the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in the Global War on Terror;

Or when a senior editor at Newsweek disparagingly refers to the brave volunteers in our armed forces -- the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard -- as a "mercenary army;"

When the former head of CNN accuses the American military of deliberately targeting journalists; and the once CNN Baghdad bureau chief finally admits that as bureau chief in Baghdad, he concealed reports of Saddam Hussein's crimes when he was in charge there so that CNN could keep on reporting selective news;

And it's a time when Amnesty International refers to the military facility at Guantanamo Bay -- which holds terrorists who have vowed to kill Americans and which is arguably the best run and most scrutinized detention facility in the history of warfare -- as "the gulag of our times." It’s inexcusable. (Applause.)

Those who know the truth need to speak out against these kinds of myths and distortions that are being told about our troops and about our country. America is not what's wrong with the world. (Applause.)

The struggle we are in -- the consequences are too severe -- the struggle too important to have the luxury of returning to that old mentality of “Blame America First.”

It is telling - telling indeed - that the Associated Press report of Rumsfeld's speech (in which he complained about media distortion) itself shamelessly distorted his remarks and had to be corrected, thus rather eloquently underscoring his point.

It is precisely this type of thing, as well as remarks like those of Senator Ted Kennedy, who said of our own military, "Saddam's torture chambers have reopened under U.S. management.", that caused Rumseld to say that some of the administration's opponents are intellectually and morally confused.

And frankly it's hard to believe that the vast majority of ordinary Americans, even those who oppose the war, really believe this type of nonsense. I hope - I pray - they don't. Yet Olbermann wrongly throws everything into the same confused, jumbled basket.

When you break his argument down, it amounts to this:

Bush and company aren't the historical equivalent of Churchill, who recognized the threat of a fascist and totalitarian regime and rallied, against the will of most of the "international community", a coalition to oppose Hitler. No, he's the historical equivalent of Neville Chamberlain, a man who argued that violence was never the answer, who refused to allow unilateral action without the comforting blanket of consensus, who didn't see the threat until it was too late. In fact, Chamberlain didn't lock up his opponents either. There may have been some unpleasant "speech" back then too, but old Winston Churchill didn't get his knickers in a twist when he was "demonized" by his intellectual or political opponents. He just fired back.

And in case you missed that neato analogy at the end, Olbermann himself bids fair be a patch on Edgar R. Murrow, who Spoke Truth To Glower during the McCarthy era, when there were all those horrid Star Chambers going on.... of course there's nothing even remotely like that happening today.

But there could be.

There could be. And only one man stands between us and that awful, awful destiny. Keith Olbermann: Bloggerman.

This is what bothers me, in the end, about pieces like Olbermann's.

He writes well: really, really well. I wanted to get up and cheer at the end of his little screed. But when you started to pick apart what it was he had really said, the whole house of cards really started to fall apart. He doesn't quote any of Donald Rumsfeld's words. He doesn't directly address any of Rumsfeld's ideas.

All is indirection and recharacterization, and that makes it far too easy to mislead and confuse the issues; to conflate one thing unfairly with another. And to tell the truth, most people are far too busy to sit down and patiently untangle the issues and ideas and think through the tangled muddle. There is no guarantee that I have gotten it right; this is simply my take, from my admittedly biased perspective. But there are an awful lot of flaws in Mr. Olbermann's essay, and I suspect that due to his fluid writing style and the lack of specific references to Mr. Rumsfeld's ideas, most people missed a very important point: Rumsfeld's speech, though you may disagree with it, was far more nuanced than Keith Olbermann or many commenters and pundits who linked to it may realize.

But I find this is so often the case with current events. We see each day through a glass, darkly. It is only at some time in the future that blessed clarity comes, like a benison, to sort out the warp from the weft; the significant from that which is of no importance; and at last with those irrelevancies brushed away we are able to pick out the shining threads - the connections - that were there all along.

But for the present, it's as though we had mislaid our reading glasses again. Our vision is hopelessly blurred by too many opinions, news stories, emotions, too many arguing voices. And that is a very sad thing, at least to me.

Note: Anytime I write something like this, I almost feel like it is begging for Democrat or liberal-bashing.

Just for once, I would like not to see that in the comments section, OK? :)

We all get frustrated with the other side. They get frustrated with us. Of course, we're both right (or reich) - the other side exhibits extreme suckitude and should have their right to vote taken away until such time as they can pass an IQ test, as evidenced by willingness to vote for the candidate of our choice. But to a certain extent, a lot of things that go on in America in the political arena are human failings, not liberal/conservative ones.

And this weekend, the HVES is feeling like a lover, not a fighter. OK?

Posted by Cassandra at 06:12 AM | Comments (33)

August 30, 2006

The Path to 9/11

Little Miss Attila has the scoop on what sounds like the first honest portrayal on 9/11 to hit the airwaves. Check out her site to find out when it will air.

A little teaser from her link:

This is the first Hollywood production I’ve seen that honestly depicts how the Clinton administration repeatedly bungled the capture of Osama Bin Laden. One astonishing sequence in “The Path to 9/11″ shows the CIA and the Northern Alliance surrounding Bin Laden’s house in Afghanistan. They’re on the verge of capturing Bin Laden, but they need final approval from the Clinton administration in order to go ahead. They phone Clinton, but he and his senior staff refuse to give authorization for the capture of Bin Laden, for fear of political fall-out if the mission should go wrong and civilians are harmed. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger in essence tells the team in Afghanistan that if they want to capture Bin Laden, they’ll have to go ahead and do it on their own without any official authorization. That way, their necks will be on the line - and not his. The astonished CIA agent on the ground in Afghanistan repeatedly asks Berger if this is really what the administration wants. Berger refuses to answer, and then finally just hangs up on the agent. The CIA team and the Northern Alliance, just a few feet from capturing Bin Laden, have to abandon the entire mission. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda shortly thereafter bomb the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing over 225 men, women, and children, and wounding over 4000. The episode is a perfect example of Clinton-era irresponsibility and incompetence.

The miniseries also has a scene in which the CIA has crucial information identifying some of the 9/11 hijackers in advance of 9/11, but refuses to share the information with the FBI because of the “wall” put up by certain Democrat officials to prevent information sharing between government agencies. The CIA is depicted as sitting in a meeting with the FBI (with John O’Neil present), and showing the FBI surveillance photos of terrorism suspects - some of whom will later turn out to be the 9/11 hijackers. The CIA asks the FBI for help in identifying the men in the photos, but refuses to give the FBI any of the information they have on who the men are. John O’Neil protests that it’s impossible for the FBI to help the CIA identify the men if they won’t provide any information whatsoever on them. When O’Neil tells the FBI to keep the photos so they can at least work on them, the CIA becomes hostile to O’Neil and takes the photos back. Tragically, John O’Neil himself will later die in the 9/11 attacks, in part because agencies like the CIA refused to share crucial information like this. Scenes like these really challenge the prevailing liberal media and Hollywood mindset by showing that the Patriot Act’s information-sharing and surveillance provisions are crucial to the safety of this country, and that political correctness and bureaucratic inefficiency are Islamic terrorism’s greatest friend.

Interested? You should be. Click the link. Tell a friend. Spread the word. Support this.

Posted by Cassandra at 05:23 PM | Comments (11)

August 24, 2006

NY TimesWatch: Lies, Damned Lies, And Statistics

Gateway Pundit piles on to the NY Times article we took great exception to last week:

Last week the New York Times wrote that "the insurgency in Iraq has gotten worse by almost all measures":

Bombs Aimed at G.I.’s in Iraq Are Increasing

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 — ..."The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high levels," said a senior Defense Department official who agreed to discuss the issue only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for attribution.

But, Back Talk took at a look at 7 month trends and found a very different picture of Iraq.

Funny how that works, isn't it? Looking at all the data instead of cherry-picking monthly statistics to argue a predetermined political point often yields interesting results. Last week we noted several flaws in the Times' rather novel analysis, among them the deliberate choice of January's wounded numbers as a comparison point (you had to go clear back to February of 2004 to find a lower monthly total) and the shift to the number of bombs planted as a measure of violence (we noted this was fairly worthless without a corresponding measure of effectiveness, as the point of planting bombs is generally to kill or wound the enemy).

Alert readers will recall the Times quoted one of its vast stable of DOD experts, who invariably speak "only on condition of anonymity" because they are "not authorized to speak for attribution". Roughly translated, this means they are talking out of school. This is how readers of the Times know we are dealing with a Reliable Source.

After all, they have violated the terms of their employment contract to speak with a reporter, and anyone so willing to go back on their word obviously demonstrates the flexible urban sensibilities for which the Times is justly famed. But should any further verification be needed, never fear: the Times provides ample backup for its anonymous sourcing:

A separate, classified report by the Defense Intelligence Agency, dated Aug. 3, details worsening security conditions inside the country and describes how Iraq risks sliding toward civil war, according to several officials who have read the document or who have received a briefing on its contents.

Of course there is one slight problem. We can't actually see this report, so the Times has "verified" an Anonymous Source we're not sure we can trust by citing an Anonymous Report we can't see. Because it's classified, you see. Come to think of it, we're not really sure why any of the Times' other Anonymous Sources are talking about this report either. Aren't there laws about leaking defense documents? Not to worry, we've obviously forgetten about that blanket First Amendment exception which allows members of the media to selectively declassify national security information at will. Our bad.

Like FauxNews, the half vast editorial staff here at VC try to be fair and balanced. We don't pretend that everything in Baghdad is hunky dory, or that the insurgents are throwing roses at the Coalition forces as they drive through the streets. We know, for instance, that attacks on ordinary Iraqis are increasing, and this alarms us greatly. But the implications of this startling fact are something the Times never quite seem to examine either.

In war, one attacks the enemy. What does it say that the insurgency is, to a large extent, focusing the brunt of its fury, not on coalition forces, but on the Iraqi people themselves? It says that they recognize that the greatest danger to the insurgency is not US forces, nor the IA/IP, but ordinary Iraqis. They are the Enemy. They are what must be defeated if the insurgency is to prevail.

And it also goes without saying (though we can't quite restrain ourselves from saying it anyway) that if attacks on those who are trying to protect the Iraqis are decreasing, it can't really be said that things are getting worse in Iraq by almost all measures, can it? Especially if you believe the NYT and the insurgency is, in fact, concentrating 70% of their effort on US troops and IED attacks are, in fact the deadliest of all attacks.

All of these things can't be true at the same time. It just doesn't make sense. Unless of course you're the New York Times, and you insist on quoting anonymous Pentagon sources who cite selected statistics from classified documents we can't see and can't check. It certainly makes it difficult to sort out fact from fiction.

Posted by Cassandra at 06:14 AM | Comments (2)

August 21, 2006

Faith and Commitment

This is a difficult post, one I have misgivings about publishing. For the past week I've been trying to decide whether there is any real value to anything I've done for the past two and a half years. I am still not sure what the answer to that question is.

All I know is that I am more troubled than I have felt at any point I can remember. I sit down to write in the morning and more often than not I feel sick. And angry. Very angry. That is not a place I want to be. I have always striven to bring some degree of objectivity, of distance, to my writing despite the admittedly strong feelings and convictions I bear towards the subjects I write about.

I am not sure I can do that anymore. And if I can't do that, I don't see how I can continue to write.

I no longer recognize the America I thought I knew, that I have worked so hard to support in the way I thought best. The country I love, the one I taught my sons to revere, is described lyrically by (of all things) a foreigner:

The Americans are more old-fashioned than us, and what is equally admirable, they are not ashamed of being old-fashioned. They know Churchill was a great man, so they put his house on the map. There is a kind of Englishman to whom this sort of behaviour seems painfully unsophisticated.

We are inclined, in our snobbish way, to dismiss the Americans as a new and vulgar people, whose civilisation has hardly risen above the level of cowboys and Indians. Yet the United States of America is actually the oldest republic in the world, with a constitution that is one of the noblest works of man. When one strips away the distracting symbols of modernity - motor cars, skyscrapers, space rockets, microchips, junk food - one finds an essentially 18th-century country. While Europe has engaged in the headlong and frankly rather immature pursuit of novelty - how many constitutions have the nations of Europe been through in this time? - the Americans have held to the ideals enunciated more than 200 years ago by their founding fathers.

The sense of entering an older country, and one with a sterner sense of purpose than is found among the flippant and inconstant Europeans, can be enjoyed even before one gets off the plane. On the immigration forms that one has to fill in, one is asked: "Have you ever been arrested or convicted for an offence or crime involving moral turpitude?" Who now would dare to pose such a question in Europe? The very word "turpitude" brings a smile, almost a sneer, to our lips.

This part brought a smile to my face, too. I'm not a fool. I realize it is, to some degree, a fanciful notion. We are not, really, that old-fashioned anymore. But there is a grain of truth to the description and we are, after all, speaking not of absolutes but of degrees - of the comparison between America and Europe. And America is different from the rest of the world. That is what made us, to generations of immigrants, to those huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the Golden Mountain. It is what made us the City on the Hill: a beacon of freedom, opportunity, and prosperity even with all our manifest failings.

At any rate, that passage reminded me of countless childhood hours spent reading the classics - of pouring over stories of ancient Greeks visiting the rustic Romans, whom they found unbearably quaint, almost stuffy in their regard for integrity and simple living. But Rome was then still a Republic and Roman matrons were still virtuous and relatively chaste. Not for them the licentious revels and corrupt politics of later years. Rome had not yet replaced integrity and stern conviction with that special brand of defeatism and attenuated cynicism that passes for sophistication in more 'advanced' cultures. But it was this section that tore at my heart:

The Americans are prepared to use force in pursuit of what they regard as noble aims. It is yet another respect in which they are rather old-fashioned. They are patriots who venerate their nation and their flag.

The idea has somehow gained currency in Britain that America is an essentially peaceful nation. Quite how this notion took root, I do not know. Perhaps we were unduly impressed by the protesters against the Vietnam war.

It is an idea that cannot survive a visit to the National Museum of American History in Washington, where one is informed that the "price of freedom" is over and over again paid in blood.

The Americans' tactics in Iraq, and their sanction for Israel's tactics in Lebanon, have given rise to astonishment and anger in Europe. It may well be that those tactics are counter-productive, and that the Americans and Israelis need to take a different approach to these ventures if they are ever to have any hope of winning hearts and minds.

But when the Americans speak of freedom, we should not imagine, in our cynical and worldly-wise way, that they are merely using that word as a cloak for realpolitik. They are not above realpolitik, but they also mean what they say.

These formidable people think freedom is so valuable that it is worth dying for.

What put that lump in my throat and what continues to worry at me day and night, is that a small part of America still believes in this ideal, still possesses this purity of vision. But it is dwindling daily, being replaced by a 'smarter', more effete nation that believes in nothing whole heartedly. That will commit to no promise, will see no course of action through to the bitter end. That finds, paradoxically, wisdom in expediency and intellectual honesty in being morally flexible when the going gets tough. That eschews idealism for the new God of the 21st Century Man: realism.

I have, on more than one occasion, been accused of being a Pollyanna. But I come by this honestly. Americans have justly prided themselves on being a naive people. We open our hearts and our pocketbooks, without reservation or suspicion. There are worse faults. If one were to pick a phrase to describe the American character, one would almost have to say that as a people we have a boundless faith, an almost limitless optimism. We believe in the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity, we believe in God, in that crazy 'melting pot' that is American culture, in that great experiment called democracy.

In fact, if I had to pick one of my favorite posts it would probably be this one, called (unsurprisingly) Democracy, The Glorious Dream. I have written better ones. I have written few that came more from my heart; from what makes me get up at 4 am every day and pound away at my keyboard like a madwoman.

About a year ago I was sitting at the dinner table with friends, Democrats, which is not uncommon since many of our closest friends are Democrats. We like to argue with them as a spur to the digestion. It was just before I wrote that piece and largely inspired it. The subject of American exceptionalism and the war came up. The conversation grew somewhat heated, and I tried to explain why I think it so vitally important the United States not do as so many of the Jeffersonian stripe would have us do: firmly push our heads into the sand as though we lived in some 18th Century isolationist utopia that no longer exists. In truth, I am not sure it ever did exist. It was just easier to blind ourselves to the evil that men do, back then. To isolate ourselves, to live in our own little worlds and say "this doesn't touch me".

Perhaps we could afford that kind of dangerous naivety in an age without jetliners and nuclear bombs, but it strikes me as almost unbearably funny that the few remaining champions of American exceptionalism are accused of "unrealism". To some, there is nothing more realistic, and nothing more "worth it", than backing our ideals with American sweat, blood, tears, and treasure.

Sitting at the table that night I tried to explain that nature abhors a vacuum. There is always a balance of power in the world, and if we do not stand up for what we believe in, the space we leave will be quickly filled by someone else. The question then becomes, who? Surely not Europe: Europe has been in the process of disarming itself for at least a generation. What good was internationalism at Srebenica?

If I shrink in horror when I hear statements like this from conservatives, what must the rest of the world be thinking? "Oh, bringing democracy to the Middle East is fine in principle, but in practice it has been FUBAR so now we must consider more realistic alternatives." Odd how those more realistic alternatives always seem to involve doing nothing or retreating to an 'over the horizon' position, from whence we can safely tut-tut and do nothing while everything goes to hell in a hand basket while we maintain comfortable but competent (and above all realistic) deniability.

In today's Washington Post, Iraq's ambassador to the US delivers a stern and much-needed rebuke:

As the debate on Iraq rages on, we hear more and more voices that call for throwing in the towel and leaving the mess to Iraqis to sort out. A new and unexpected proponent of this argument is Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, who said in a recent column that it's time for "Plan B." Only a few months before, he was arguing that it would be time for the United States to pack up and go only "when we don't see Iraqis taking the risk to build a progressive Iraq." Now, under the weight of bad news from Baghdad, he seems ready to abandon those very same brave men and women fighting valiantly to establish peace and justice in Iraq. I am an admirer of Friedman, who is generally thoughtful, well informed and supportive, but in this case he and many like him have gone dangerously off-track.

What has made the past three years hugely more difficult and complicated is the fact that we all underestimated the determination of our opponents and some of our neighbors to undermine this new project. In the context of a global confrontation, this has pitched our fledgling democracy onto the front line of a monumental struggle. It is these outside forces, allied with Saddamists, other terrorists and regular criminals, that threaten to overwhelm us.

To argue that American withdrawal from Iraq would create a "huge problem for Iran" is disingenuous. Iran is fairly secure within its borders. Any problems in Iraq will be for Iraqis to suffer. If there is a collapse and a civil war in Iraq, it is Iran's proxies who will do the fighting, and when the dust settles these proxies will most likely end up with the oil-rich southern region of Iraq -- a significant strategic gain for Iran.

There would also be the psychological impact of the perceived defeat for America. That would encourage all the enemies of the United States -- and they are many -- to be bolder and readier to challenge its interests everywhere. A new super-radical, geographically contiguous bloc would be born: Iran, Syria and a radicalized, totalitarian, fragmented Iraq.

As for the argument that the very presence of the foreign forces is a source of tension and that their departure would remove a prime source of violence: It may appear plausible at first glance, but it is in fact without merit. We need to understand precisely who is ready to fight to drive foreign forces out; it is only the Saddamists and the religious extremists (al-Qaeda and the like). If U.S. forces are in fact withdrawn, these people will consider it a victory and go on fighting even harder to achieve control over the country.

Since when has America had to be reminded to support democracy? Since when have we had to be reminded not to desert the weak and the defenseless, not to renege on our promises? Why, oh why in all the tiresome Iraq=Vietnam comparisons, does no one trouble to remember the slaughter that followed the fall of Saigon? Or is what happens when a "realistic" Congress pulls the rug out from our allies just another lesson we are determined to sweep into the dustbin of history?

I am sorry, but I am disgusted beyond measure with my own party.

The most dangerous form of "unrealism", from where I'm sitting, is the inability to deal with frustration, to understand that policy is rarely implemented in a vacuum. It is the carping, niggling, wheedling criticism of pundits who've never had to work out the practical details of the ideas they expound every day, nor compromise their lofty principles in a democratic society where no one agrees on anything and everyone is a Monday morning quarterback. It's the unbelievable arrogance that allows bloviating bloggers to sit back and calmly debate whether America ought to install a "stong man" in Iraq, as though freedom were some particularly gaudy bauble we had bestowed on Those People but had decided they weren't really ready for.

Or perhaps we ought to ignore the Constitution the Iraqis just came out and risked their lives to vote for, and set aside lives of the over 2500 American men and women who've died so far to breathe life into it, and simply slice up their country like some obscene pizza pie; as though Turkey would stand for two seconds for an independent Kurdistan and Iraq's neighbors wouldn't immediately begin picking at the pieces of her corpse like vultures. Doubtless Iraqis and American war widows alike can comfort themselves with the knowledge that it was nothing personal. Their sacrifices have been duly noted, but it's all part of the New Realism that is all the rage amongst the Georgetown set.

George Will thinks John Kerry was right. He thinks the law enforcement approach was the way to go after all. In an almost unbelievable triumph of hope over experience he cites the success of the recent disruption of the London plot.

Has he been reading any American newspapers lately? Has he, perhaps, read about the latest ruling on the NSA wiretapping case, one so poorly reasoned that even opponents of government wiretapping are scratching their heads over it? Did he miss the outing of the SWIFT program, exactly the kind of program John Kerry was describing when he said combating terrorism was "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world." Perhaps it escaped Mr. Will's notice that such cooperation is endangered (to put it mildly) when the NY Times outs even programs it called for in the aftermath of 9/11. Or maybe the rather startling gap between the freewheeling press and bill of rights in America and those of, say, Pakistan or England are minor details he feels can be safely ignored.

The truth is I've had it about up to here with words and the criticisms of those who are only satisfied with perfectly fought wars and governments who never make mistakes, though those two commodities don't seem to exist in any history book I've ever read. Words don't win wars. Two things win wars.

Faith. And commitment. No one really doubts we have the resources to win in Iraq. We are the world's largest superpower. Right now if you walk though the halls of the Pentagon (and this is a point seldom made when the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth starts on Capitol Hill), though members of all services are represented in the War on Terror (and they serve bravely and well), there are only two services who are wearing cammies: the Army and the Marines. That is because only two services are full-on at war. We are not yet strained to the breaking point. If we had to, we could do more.

And if you are one of those who are angry at government for not convincing you to sacrifice, for not spoon-feeding you commitment, for not soothing your doubts and fears, what is keeping you from sacrificing, from getting involved, from being informed, from motivating yourself? We live in an information age. So many people are doing good work: Semper Fi Fund, Project Valour IT, Purple Heart Foundation, Homes for our Troops. Any one of them would be glad to hear from you, or to have your help.

And Brian, I hate like hell to do this, because I will treasure your kind remark until the day I die, but I have to say this:

My love affair with the written word is just about at an end. Words are easy, and they have never won any war that I can remember, and George Will and his "farrago of caricature and non sequitur" can kiss this Marine wife's rosy pink ass.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:10 AM | Comments (60)

August 19, 2006

Something Truly Radical

Max Boot weighs what he calls "radical strategies" for securing Baghdad:

If the present strategy doesn't work, what's the alternative? The most radical course would be a total U.S. withdrawal. The likely result would be an all-out civil war in which Iraqi casualties could easily soar to 1,000 a day and the price of oil could go above $100 a barrel. Proposals to carve up Iraq into three separate states — Sunni, Shiite and Kurd — would not ameliorate the violence because major cities such as Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk are full of different religious and ethnic groups that would fight for control.

THINGS MIGHT ultimately work out if the current, moderate Shiite leadership were to prevail. But the more likely result would be the empowerment of radicals on both sides, with someone like Muqtada Sadr taking over in Baghdad and a rump, Taliban-style Sunni state being carved out of western Iraq. U.S. prestige would be deeply wounded, and Islamist terrorists would be encouraged to keep attacking us outside Iraq.

No wonder almost all Iraqi political factions are opposed to a U.S. pullout. They know what horrors would ensue.

It's funny how seldom we hear that last truth echoed on Capitol Hill, though it managed to penetrate even the pages of the New York Times a few weeks ago. The fact is that the last thing the Sunnis want now is for US forces to leave. We are their best protection because, for many Iraqis, we have come to represent stability and the rule of law:

Hamid Ayad could not forget the last time U.S. soldiers came to his door two years ago. They tossed smoke bombs and burst into his home, then arrested his four brothers, he said. They were later jailed at Abu Ghraib prison.

Three days ago, another group of U.S. soldiers came to his home in the volatile western Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriyah, this time accompanied by Iraqi troops. The U.S. soldiers politely asked if they could enter his large home. They asked to register his family's eight cars, and they did not confiscate the family's AK-47 rifle, their only means of protection.

That made Ayad, 24, feel more confident about the Iraqi soldiers. Only two months ago, Shiite Iraqi soldiers on patrols in Amiriyah taunted Sunnis like him, he said. They did little to shield residents from the sectarian clashes strangling their lives. But on this day, the Iraqi soldiers he met were courteous and seemed genuinely concerned.

"Their image has changed," said Ayad, who holds a business degree but is unemployed. "Now, you feel like they are there to protect you. They are not acting or faking. The Americans have them on a tight leash."

A lot has changed in Iraq, but you rarely hear that in the stale rhetoric of politicians about how we can't seem to adapt. The fact is that we're constantly adapting, constantly changing tactics, just as the terrorists do. And what the Post describes, oddly, is precisely the kind of operation Boot calls for later in his editorial; only it would seem we're already doing it and, more surprisingly, the Washington Post has chosen to cover it in a wonderful three page article that shows the media don't only write bad news about the war.

But the important thing to note, given the fragile confidence established by this operation, is how vital it is NOT to draw down our forces yet. That is exactly the wrong thing to do at this point. As Boot has pointed out, no one - except perhaps the terrorists - wants us to leave. What we are doing - and this is important - is handing over security operations to the Iraqis and changing the focus to assisting them : making sure they are conducting security sweeps properly with dignity and respect for the rule of law, rather than conducting the operations ourselves. This is what will, in the long run, establish confidence in Iraqi institutions. But that is going to take time. Boot, on the other hand, calls for a drawdown of US forces:

But there's another course short of withdrawal: reducing U.S. forces from today's level of 130,000 to under 50,000 and changing their focus from conducting combat operations to assisting Iraqi forces. The money saved from downsizing the U.S. presence could be used to better train and equip more Iraqi units. A smaller U.S. commitment also would be more sustainable over the long term. This is the option favored within the U.S. Special Forces community, in which the dominant view is that most American soldiers in Iraq, with their scant knowledge of the local language and customs, are more of a hindrance than a help to the counterinsurgency effort.

Make no mistake: This is a high-risk strategy. The drawdown of U.S. troops could catalyze the Iraqis into getting their own house in order, or it could lead to a more rapid and violent disintegration of the rickety structure that now exists.

There is some evidence the visible partnering of US troops with Iraqi patrols who take the lead is effective in building confidence. We may have found the right force mix. Note the new determination to eliminate sectarian loyalities from the IA. From the Post story:

After searching more than 6,000 homes and buildings, the soldiers confiscated only 28 unauthorized guns and 47 hand grenades and arrested eight suspects.

"It doesn't matter how many guns we found," Col. Robert Scurlock Jr., commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, told reporters Wednesday. "It gave people the confidence in the Iraqi army and security forces. And we will continue to build that trust."

The Iraqi army is seen by many Sunni residents as sympathetic to Shiite militias, such as the Mahdi Army, linked to radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Ayad recalled an attack last month when gunmen ambushed a bus in Amiriyah and killed six passengers and the driver, then set the vehicle ablaze. Like many in his neighborhood, he believed that the Mahdi Army orchestrated the attack -- and that the Iraqi soldiers there to protect the neighborhood looked the other way.

"The burned bus is still there," said Ayad. "The Iraqi army had two checkpoints, but they didn't stop" the gunmen. "On the contrary, they were cooperating with the Mahdi Army and allowed them to enter our neighborhood. I didn't trust the Iraqi army then."

Brig. Gen. Abdul Jaleel Kahlaiaf, commander of the Iraqi army's 1st Brigade, 6th Division, said he was determined to erase such perceptions. Iraq's Defense Ministry, he told reporters in Amiriyah, is now requiring all recruits to sign a pledge that "they should be loyal to Iraq, not a sect."

"Those soldiers who have a sectarian bias will not stay with us," he said in a room at Amiriyah's municipal office.

During Operation Together Forward, US forces deliberately stayed in the background:

The photos included an Iraqi soldier in brown camouflage holding the hand of a trusting, smiling boy on a Baghdad street.

U.S. and Iraqi commanders tried to spread that image in Amiriyah. The four-day operation began on Sunday with U.S. and Iraqi troops conducting door-to-door searches; the Iraqis were often given the lead role.

"The intent was to do it with dignity and respect for families," said Scurlock. Several "problem" mosques, where insurgents allegedly had stockpiled weapons, were taken over and "now we've posted guards and returned them back to the people," he added. They also registered guns and created a census of the residents

The impact on the violence was immediate. Residents said they didn't hear a single gunshot or mortar explosion, and by Wednesday they were experiencing a rare calm.

A drive that day through the streets, in a heavily armed U.S. military convoy, revealed a neighborhood of silent streets blocked with razor coil and shuttered shops. The few souls outside stared blankly at U.S. Humvees cruising by slowly.

"Since we began the operation, not one person from Amiriyah has died, not one act of violence has occurred," Scurlock said.

Many residents wonder how long the peace will last. The U.S. military will soon give the Iraqi troops full responsibility again for the security of Amiriyah.

Already, the mistrust is creeping back.

Sheik Mohammed Faiz, the imam of the Sunni al-Abbas mosque, said he was wary of what he viewed as a U.S. military takeover of the mosques.

"The American forces kicked out the local guards from the five local mosques in Amiriyah and replaced them with fixed Iraqi soldiers in order to protect it," said Faiz. "We think they have those soldiers as eyes on the mosques, not to protect it but to monitor those who are getting in and out of the mosques."

Others are convinced that most of the insurgents had fled before the security clampdown and are planning a return as soon as the U.S. military pulls out.

"Amiriyah has become more quiet and more secure after the presence of the American forces, but once they leave, the area will return as it used to be," said Abdul Aziz al-Kubaissi, 55, another resident. "Al-Qaeda and the other insurgents fled with their weapons one day before the beginning of the operation."

That sense of unease is shared by Omar at Iraq the Model, who was encouraged by Operation Forward Together but worries about what will happen if such efforts are not maintained:

This sounds like encouraging news that the plan is going to deliver some positive results in extremely dangerous areas as al-Doura and the commanders are saying that similar operations will be repeated throughout the entire capital which is good, but I also have some concerns as to the durability of expected stability to be brought by this operation(s).

Later, he was happy to see the appearance of fortified checkpoints:

Instead of reinforcing checkpoints on the outer circle of Baghdad, US troops are installing concrete walls and creating designated gates around/at the entrance to localized areas where the troops alongside Iraqi forces conducted extensive cordon_and_search operations.

...Now this looks like a method that has good chances for success, and I believe the chances will be much better if US advisors keep an eye on the performance of the IP units manning these fortified check points.

It seems the common theme here is a strong continued partnership between the IA/IP and coalition forces. At the risk of talking about something I admittedly don't know much about, this is why India survived after the British left: they had a strong civil service and legal system left in place after decades of colonial rule.

It strikes me as naive beyond belief to think that we can just pull up stakes suddenly and expect the Iraqis to pull through when they have a malicious and active insurgency trying to undermine them at every turn. We may not like it, but we are in this for the long haul.

We've been training the IA, they are stepping up to the plate, and we are beginning to pull back and let them assume responsibility for their own security. But I continue to believe that we need to maintain a strong presence in the area and considering that Israel has had to deal with terrorism and terrorist acts for literally decades now, to pretend that the presence of insecurity is some barometer of impending disaster for any democracy in the Middle East rather than a normal condition for that region is really a bit rich. The truth is that democracy, especially in the Middle East, is something of a hothouse flower.

That does not mean it is no longer worth the candle, unless the United States is going to retreat from the world stage, close all our airports to incoming traffic, retire to some agrarian 18th century Jeffersonian fantasy world that no longer exists where we can place our heads firmly between our legs and bid our collective derrieres a fond adieu. The unpleasant truth is that in a world without borders, if we're not willing to fight for democracy we're likely to spend most of our time fending off attacks from the type of fundamentalist wacko who doesn't believe 'live and let live' is a winning philosophy.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:51 AM | Comments (15)

August 18, 2006

A Little Food For Thought

TigerHawk** points to a heartwarming little burst of anomie from (where else?) the New York Times which tells us, among other things, that attacks on U.S. troops are increasing as indicated by the Times' metric du jour (honestly, we find it almost impossible to keep up with the shifting baselines): the number of roadside bombs plant